Unfortunately , few in IT have a handle on the financial controls that should be in place to insure that the existing IT investment is returning value to the business . As control moves back into the hands of centralized IT and the CBO , solving this problem should be a top priority .
Considering the problem of increasing complexity and centralization , it ’ s clear that IT has to address a few core issues . IT must :
• Better Understand Who Is Consuming IT Services -- Complex services are difficult to measure , in terms of resource usage and costs . However , they are an integral part of IT solutions , including cloud-based systems . What makes these services complex are their granularity , and how they interact with other services , including any dependencies . Enterprises need to understand who ’ s consuming the services , as well as how costs track down to the resources they actually bind to those services . For example , an application may invoke a few APIs for storage services that actually involve aspects of AWS , Microsoft and private cloud resources . IT needs to understand how all these things interact , in order to understand the true cost metrics .
• Embrace Automation -- The tipping point to manually managing resources is long past . This means that the number of services enterprises manage has reached a point where use-based accounting and consumption monitoring using manual processes no longer work .
• Track Consumption -- The lack of usage tracking gives IT little visibility into past usage of resources , cost information and future trends that need to be proactively addressed . Enterprise system managers receive no deep understanding about where resources are consumed , or by whom , or how much this costs the enterprise . Such information should be delivered using financial analytical services that are tightly coupled to consumption tracking .
Getting Started
So , how do you get started ? It ’ s a matter of understanding the ideas we ’ ve presented in this article and taking them to heart . Using the Cloud Business Office concept is perhaps the best approach , given that levering internal and external cloud services will be an ongoing effort . However , there needs to be a holistic understanding as to what the value of cloud computing really is , and how to track the value creation process when your cloud environments are operational .
The operational-oriented approach to cloud economics , using a Cloud Business Office , as well as automated monitoring tools , is very different from just coming up with a business case at the onset of your cloud initiative . In doing so , you ’ ll have the greatest opportunity to create value using this emerging technology -- and , ultimately , that ’ s the name of the game .
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