Dancing with the Clouds

By Manoj Chugh, President – Group Public Affairs and Member, Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra

A few years ago, I had an animated discussion with the CIO of one of the leading manufacturing firms, Down Under. The conversation quickly meandered to the Cloud, his gameplan and how his organization was migrating some of their key applications like messaging to the Brave New World. He had at that time foreseen that businesses would not rely on just one single Could Provider, but would bet on a Multi-Cloud environment, given the plethora of problems they were trying to solve. With the anticipated growth in the adoption of AI, Virtual and Augmented reality, Blockchain, Cybersecurity amongst others, his prophecy seemed highly plausible. I asked him, what he anticipated to be the number of cloud providers an organization would engage with over time and to my utter surprise he had a precise number in his mind. It was 14! To date, I have never been able to figure out how he came up with that one and why that number in the first place.

Today, most organizations rely on multiple Clouds to run their IT Applications. A Multi Cloud environment is here to stay. Moving workloads across Clouds is a reality and not some science project. Digital transformation is under pinned by the ability of organizations to leverage a multi-cloud environment efficiently. An end-to-end software and cloud technology play is a critical ingredient of success. The ability to harness the Cloud to enable commercial, technology and digital transformations by deploying IP and technology-driven products and services has been effectively mainstreamed. Today customers can modernize applications and migrate critical workloads to public clouds seamlessly. The Big Question that remains is, how does one optimize software usage, cloud resource utilization and software licensing- all three, simultaneously.

The first approach that most customers take is to go to their favorite Global SI who offers Migration, Modernization and Ongoing support. However, Global SI’s may not always have all the answers, given the complexity of a customer’s environment. The questions that we need answers for, are many.

These include, but are not limited to:
• A clear visibility and Accountability of the Cloud/ Software Consumption and Spend across Cloud environments
• What and where are the potential Cloud/ Software Spend Savings Opportunities
• To what extent can one automate and gain Operational Efficiency
• Given the focus on Governance and Compliance, since it is now a Board Agenda item, what are the insights that one can get.
• How does one right size
• With the rapid move to DevOps as the “ mantra” of IT development and deployment, getting the Cloud Dev Ops piece on one’s fingertips is critical.
• Figuring our Cloud Cost Optimization strategies and ensure their automation, so that one does not have to do this perpetually each time.
• Cloud Security Threats and Real time Remediation
• Hassle free Automation of Backup and DR on the Clouds across Regions and Accounts

A key area of interest to the CFO is the “spend” they are making on Cloud deployments and operations. As organizations move their workloads to the Cloud, extensive studies are undertaken prior to making the tough call, particularly when organizations are moving from their own in-house datacenters.

As more and more applications move across to the Cloud environment, costs start to balloon and the need for optimization becomes even more real. Cloud Spend Management is an important area of focus. Aligning the twin needs of helping customers move painlessly along their Cloud Journey, while keeping costs front and center are two sides of a coin.

It is incredibly important to ensure that you are able to :
• Gain Visibility and help identify Actionable Cost Management Opportunities
• Drive Accountability with internal Business Units on their Cloud Spend
• Simplify Cloud Budget and Spend Management
• Enable Data drive Decision making and cost take out.
• Accelerate and Automate Fulfillment of Cloud consumptions and savings.

Once you are able to Automate and gain visibility of the Infrastructure and Cloud layer, it is equally important to evaluate the Software Spend and deeply understand how Software Licensing works on the Cloud versus the traditional On-premises models.

Software licensing can be complex, particularly given the need to be compliant, whilst at the same time being able to optimize cost. The last thing that an organization wants is to get a wrap on the wrist by one of their key software partners for “crossing the line.” Ensuring that one keeps a hawk’s eye on the entire supply chain process from Procurement to Management to Retiring of the Software Licenses cannot be ignored. Keeping a track, given the complexity of the License Agreements that differ based on region, usage and its application across On-Prem and Cloud environments can be quite an arduous task. Having a robust licensing Strategy whilst adhering to Compliance requirements of Enterprise Agreements can be eased if one has methods to track and manage users and the usage, have an ongoing review strategy of retirement/ swap licenses based on roadmaps and optimal buying methods to achieve the best cost outcomes.

What I have experienced is that an ineffective Change Management process always proves costly specially when the Organization is also affecting process change, while moving to the Cloud. New ways of working, on account of more Automation, usage of DevOps, resource consumption methods and resource allocation, all undergo a change. Organizations clearly struggle to enforce discipline and Accountability. Business and Technology teams struggle incessantly with the “How To,” in this New World.

Amongst others, I have come across SoftwareONE, that offers interesting solutions that address many of the requirements organizations are challenged with. Getting the Right Partner is an important element of success as one embraces the Cloud whole heartedly. As the journey matures, the need for such partnerships becomes even more important, given the huge spend that one starts to incur.

Getting a Singe Dashboard, Single Source of Spend Date across Cloud and Software and a Single Automation and Remediation Engine can provide great succor. No transformation is painless. But the journey can be truly enduring and rewarding.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author. They may or may not reflect the opinions or views of the author’s organisation

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