Just before Christmas I was speaking to a customer, nothing new there. We talked about the inevitable – the situation many of us find ourselves in of working from home, again nothing new there. He was telling me that the biggest frustration he has is constant disputes with his wife about the heating. She wants it on all the time to stay warm, he does too but is more concerned about the cost. An age-old problem – amplified.

You may be thinking, OK, but what has this got to do with cloud management.

Well, I know from speaking to many people in the Fintech sector that their infrastructure is often managed by DevOps. Fintech’s are blessed with amazing DevOps teams. This is one of the ways they disrupt an industry that dates back hundreds of years. Their priority is to make their apps amazing. Of course it is, this is their role, what they are paid to do, how they help drive the company forward. Hence the comparison with heating. DevOps are like my customer’s wife – they want it ‘on’ all the time, cost is not their biggest concern.  They simply want the best platform to be able to deliver fantastic apps.

Overspending and Security

Over the last decade, public cloud has grown exponentially. The features are ever increasing. Best practices are constantly being reviewed. New ways of optimising are appearing all the time. It’s incredibly complicated.

Sometimes, developers implement cloud deployments to achieve quick results, not design for efficiency or long term. This can result in inefficient systems which are difficult to maintain. Left alone, the situation could worsen as the ever-growing list of services and features grows which get built on the original design.

It is easier than ever to deploy cloud systems, it is also more complicated than ever to deploy well-designed cloud systems.  As a result of this, some organisations are now having to go back and re-architect their existing systems resulting in a loss of precious time.  As the environment grows, so does the security risk due to the larger attack surface. It’s crucial that the cloud environment is secure, while being effective and efficient. A fine balancing act between agility and control.

To compare cloud security to heating is a bit of a stretch, I admit. I could potentially make a weak link to cloud-based heating, but I don’t want to ruin my perfectly good analogy. Even if I do say so myself. Nevertheless, security remains a critical concern.

Managing public cloud is a full-time job. Which, if done wrong, could result in overspending, lead to performance issues and potentially worse of all cause a security breach. Public cloud needs constant optimisation to prevent these things. Best practise needs to be always followed and always up to date.

The Growth of Cloud Managed Services

A qualified and skilled cloud team that are immersed in public cloud is a must. One that is experienced in dealing with new cloud technologies. Many of the world’s largest organisations have grown their IT teams to have these teams in house. This allows the DevOps team to focus on what they’re great at.

Thankfully, for those organisations who can’t run huge IT teams there is another way. There has been a rapid increase in organisations choosing to outsource the management and maintenance of their infrastructure. Many choose to take up the 24x7x365 option to ensure they are secured every minute of the day.

How to Stop Overspending and Increase Security

In partnership with Microsoft, ANS offer a free, no obligation cloud check service to all organisations, no matter how lean they think they are. On average, customers typically see:

• Up to 40% in cost reduction
• Over 20 governance issues addressed
• 10+ operational efficiency opportunities
• A roadmap to a vendor aligned best practice architecture

Book your free Cloud Check service now. It is free of charge cloud optimisation service that checks your cloud security, consumption costs, efficiency and compliance against best practices. No cost, no obligation. You get a detailed cloud architecture efficiency report with key recommendations to help you reduce cloud consumption costs, validate governance controls, increase operational efficiency and ensure your platform aligns to current best practice.

Written by Ben Micklethwaite.