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CalTech Cloud Computing CTME (Center for Technology and Management Education) at Wake Technical Community College
Control Cloud Complexity
Today, most business organizations have adopted Cloud technology ranging from single and siloed cloud services to larger scale multi-cloud services. Deployment approaches related to the Cloud have included Edge computing to reduce cloud latency and to expand applications across clouds through microservices. Innovations have improved service availability as well as faster deployment of applications. The trade-off for a business has been an increase in complexity which directly impacts the ability to provide appropriate governance to the cloud as well as an increase to cloud spending.
If the cloud adoption strategy in the organization has not been well organized, then cloud spending gets out of control and makes it difficult to budget and control the cloud environment. There are three strategies, old and new, that business should look at to adopt to get their cloud services under control.
The first strategy has been around in information systems for some time and needs to be well adopted to include the cloud. It is never too late, but the application of good information governance will give the organization the ability to understand their cloud environment, bring appropriate business and technical personnel to the table, improve security, and respond to changes. Consequently, an organization then knows where its data is stored, where their applications and communication endpoints are, can conduct change management, and overall be responsive to the business and technical needs of their cloud ecosystem.
Solid information governance ensures that appropriate policies and procedures are well developed and implemented to provide the means to be fully engaged with the cloud to manage the cloud.
The second strategy is to improve your system operations. With cloud complexity a multi-cloud environment is hard to maintain. Put it this way, an organization has its cloud services that must meet business, industry, and compliance requirements. In addition, especially with Edge implementations the need to have a good handle on virtualization, networking, operating systems, hardware, and storage must come together to maintain service levels. As a result, the ability to support the multi-cloud infrastructure will be a difficult undertaking to manage and support by available of technical staff.
To support the technical staff in the operation of a cloud infrastructure an organization should look into adopting AIOps (Artificial Intelligence Operations). AIOps will take the organization beyond just system monitoring but will allow AI tools to review live data streams, application performance, system logs, etc., in a manner much faster than the human system administrator; in effect, helping the administrator to be able to find and fix problems faster and possibly to be able to address failures before they occur. System events can be collated and analyzed for patterns, application endpoints and data paths in the cloud can be more readily observed, and in essence we are using smart information system tools to help manage the complexity of these systems.
Tools in AIOps exist and are still emerging so it is important to review tool capabilities that can support the business environment and its cloud. Be selective because these tools need to be used in the long term and need to be adaptable to changing platforms and operational ecosystems. Therefore, it is important to not fall into a tool glut. Decide what tools are needed, start there, and then grow your AIOps only as needed.
The third strategy is to start looking beyond a multi-cloud architecture that will continue to add complexity, by default, to your IT ecosystem. There have been enough learned lessons about the cloud over the last several decades and Cloud 3.0 or Supercloud is the next evolution of the cloud. Its specific purpose is to reduce cloud complexity from multi-cloud adoption. Many IT vendors are starting to provide Supercloud solutions to help you bring this into your existing cloud environment. Think of the Cloud layer as the ability to provide a blanket over multi-cloud, on-prem, and Edge environments regardless of location. In a vein, similar to AIOps, adopt Supercloud solutions that are going to work with your cloud implementation. Key areas to address for any Supercloud implementation, that are pertinent to your cloud environment, are found in the services that the cloud provides, such as: security, data, application. infrastructure, end-user cloud components.
Being able to manage and support Cloud environments is essential to grapple with the expanding multi-cloud environment. The strategies discussed here, of Governance, AIOps, and Supercloud, will give a business a means to better manage and budget its cloud expenses. They will help keep the multi-cloud environment from turning into a disastrous operational hurricane ensuring that the benefits of the cloud are realized.
