6 Underutilized Cloud Services That Offer Benefits for IT

The corporate cloud focus is on moving more IT responsibilities to the cloud, using tools that enable migrations from on premises to the cloud. Such tools can ensure that cloud security measures match what the enterprise demands of itself, provision cloud resources on demand, and increase the outsourcing of key systems that formerly were run and supported in-house, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) to cloud providers. Those providers specialize in these systems and have the resources and expertise to continually improve them. 

However, there is also a second tier of cloud services that companies can take advantage of but remain under-utilized today. 

Here are six key areas: 

1. Configuration and fine-tuning

The great thing about the cloud is that most cloud providers have automation and step-by-step processes that can guide you through the setup of your IT workloads.  

This automation speeds cloud deployments for companies and is especially helpful for small- to mid-sized organizations that have limited IT resources. The problem, however, is that many companies stop after using those tools once initial onboarding is done. 

Consider an on-premises system deployment. You integrated and installed a new system, and you then would fine-tune it for performance and resource optimization. Automated cloud installations do some of the same things, but the automation doesn’t fully relieve you from finishing your own fine tuning. The “catch” is that you have to use cloud-furnished tools to do the fine-tuning. This means that your staff has to learn them. 

Related:Cloud Migration Means Teamwork: Everyone’s Involved

Many IT staffs don’t take the time to learn the cloud fine-tuning tools, so they end up sacrificing some of the performance they could get out of their cloud systems. The extra processing and overhead add to cloud costs. 

2. Governance

Governance means aligning IT management practices with business goals. This involves deploying and managing IT so it is as secure and as risk free as possible. It also means optimizing IT performance for users and customers, along with the efficient management of costs and resources. 

Cloud providers offer a plethora of governance tools, but many companies don’t commit the time to research, learn, and adopt these tools. If they did, they would be managing their clouds better. 

Equally important is access to each cloud provider’s annual IT and security audits, which your own company compliance examiners are likely to ask for. Unless you see cloud provider audits, you have no way of knowing how well these providers are upholding their own security and governance, and how closely their security and governance align with your own. 

Related:How To Transform Your Cloud Budget Into an Asset

3. Application testing

One of the most prominent areas of internal data center waste is in the unit, integration, regression, and stress testing of new applications and systems. 

Individual operating system and database test environments must be configured and provisioned for each application being tested. The task often requires top-dollar personnel like database administrators (DBAs), database analysts, and system programmers to do the setup. Application developers might have to wait until these key personnel become available, so time may be lost. Then, after testing is complete, sites forget to de-provision the assets that were reserved for testing, so resources such as storage and virtual operating systems on servers sit idle and go to waste. 

Some major enterprises have noticed the waste. To fight it, they’re moving their application testing to the cloud, where virtually any environment, from a MongoDB or SQL database to an IBM mainframe DB2 database, can be deployed on demand. Application testing can be performed on the unit, integration, regression, and stress test levels. Major cloud providers also have experts who can provide technical support and can help with resource de-provisioning when testing is over. 

Related:What Happens When You Want to Leave the Cloud?

Testing on the cloud offers cost, resource management, and time advantages.   

4. Education

Most major cloud providers offer free, online, self-paced education on the cloud and on cloud tools. This includes paths to certifications. 

This is a great, no/low-cost way for IT to get up to speed on the many different tools that are available on the cloud, and to gain proficiency. 

5. Cost analysis tools

Cloud providers now offer analytics and AI forecasting tools that are designed to help their customers with cloud cost management.  

Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS and other cloud providers have cloud spend analysis, optimization, and automation that help sites better manage cloud cost. 

Most sites are just getting started with these tools, which comprise a still-underutilized cloud feature that IT and corporate finance could benefit from. 

6. Disaster Recovery Testing

Several years ago, a CIO colleague told me that they had created what they believed was a mirror image of their IT infrastructure and applications on the cloud, and that they were feeling pretty confident about their disaster recovery (DR) and failover plan. The intent was to failover to cloud should the main data center (in an earthquake zone) be hit. 

They tested the failover to cloud and found to their surprise that the failover didn’t work! Apparently, the cloud provider had moved to a newer version of system software that no longer synchronized with what the company was using in its own data center. 

This was unfortunate, but at least they had tested it so they could discover the problem. In contrast, many companies still confine their DR plans to what they have on premises, even though they are busy moving more IT to the cloud. They think that their cloud providers can handle DR on the cloud, but a cloud provider with many clients won’t understand the fine points of a recovery like your IT staff would. 

Cloud providers know this, which is why many now provide cloud disaster recovery planning guides for their clients. Google, for example, offers training on how to plan and architect for DR in a cloud environment. There are also cloud providers that will test your cloud DR and failover plans with you to assure that they work. 

Summary Remarks 

Companies scrutinize their billing reports, utilization charts, and spreadsheets as they determine how to best manage their cloud costs and uses, but they should also be focused on how to get the most out of their cloud investments. 

As IT departments gain familiarity with cloud tools and features and discover the ones that can help them best, they will improve in the areas of cloud performance, optimization, and cost.  

Everyone -- cloud providers included -- wants this. Now we just have to make it happen.