TALKING
business
‘‘
Data compliance can be tricky with
data protection, data localisation and
data sovereignty (they are distinctly
different) factors coming into play,
especially when dealing with distributed
organisational structures or for customers
outside your borders.
Cloud doesn’t mean those pesky vendor
audits for licensing compliance go away
either and, in some ways, makes it a little
more challenging to manage, monitor
and report.
‘Gotchas’ include excess installation
(deploying more than entitled to),
virtualisation (paying for virtual instead
of physical capacity), user licensed roles
(providing features to users that are not
entitled) and in-direct access (hiding a number
of users behind a single application account).
With most organisations only conducting
compliance checks once a year or, even
worse, only when audited, this creates risks
of extra cost and even litigation.
Can an organisation use Software
Asset Management for management
of cloud instances?
“
UNDERSTANDING
CLOUD SERVICE
CONSUMPTION
ACROSS AN
ENTERPRISE
WILL PROVIDE
GREATER
GRANULARITY
AND ACCURACY
FOR CROSS-
CHARGING PER
BUSINESS UNIT
OR LOCATION.
Insights into instance usage will allow
organisations to switch workloads,
optimise instances and even spin down
unused machines.
Individual CSP plan cost inclusion allows
organisations to conduct scenario-based
cost and capacity planning and understand
how future needs would be best served from
all the options available.
Understanding cloud service consumption
across an enterprise will provide greater
granularity and accuracy for cross-charging
per business unit or location.
Integration or interoperability with a
complimentary service management
platform would allow request, approval and
provisioning of on-demand cloud services
that follow internal governance, policy and
protocol ensuring no rogue usage.
The Matrix42 intuitive platform includes
Software Asset Management, Cloud Expense
Software Asset Management and asset
management in general can be used
for discovery, inventory, management
and compliance of what sits ‘in’ a cloud
environment. SAM can also be used for
managing many SaaS applications with
plug-ins to the likes of Microsoft365 or Adobe
Creative Cloud. However, the management
of an organisation’s cloud environment itself,
whether PaaS or IaaS, requires something
more, especially when you could be using
multiple cloud service providers.
What should organisations
look for in an expense
management solution?
When evaluating cloud expense
management solutions there are some
key capabilities to take into consideration
that will make a real difference and provide
greater value to an organisation. Ease of
setup and out of the box configuration, while
providing customisation capabilities, offers
organisations reduced ‘time to value’, while
providing flexibility to manage complex
environments easily.
Single pane visibility, where multiple cloud
provider usage details can be viewed
through a single UI, along with combined
dashboards and reporting, converting pointin-time,
trend and seasonal information into
business intelligence for accurate and timely
decision making.
Management and Enterprise Service
Management for complete management
of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS environments,
providing unrivalled business value with
great operational efficiencies and strong
cost control, reduction and optimisation in
one powerful, yet easy, single solution. •
38 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com