Bundling Up for the Cloud

I hear that vendors are bundling cloud services with their other software licensing deals, and I have some thoughts about why. Azure credits are being bundled into Microsoft software license deals. Oracle customers can buy cloud credits as a way of avoiding problems that stem from database software licensing true-ups. There are a couple of ways of …

Getting to Green: Monitoring Your Cloud

Recently, we upgraded our cloud environment. This raises the question, “What is wrong with the environment after an upgrade?” As tools improve, we get new warnings, messages, and analytics. This often leads to a decision to ensure that after the upgrade, all monitoring, alerts, and other diagnostics show green across the board. Is this required, desirable, and …

In Cloud, Cost Is Everything

The use of the cloud is not governed by technology so much as it is governed by cost: the cost of on-premises management, support, expertise, and environment vs. the cost of cloud services and outsourced expertise, management, etc. The cost differential must be high enough in the short term to allow it to become valid …

Managing Your Cloud from the Cloud

Building a private cloud was a high priority for a number of organizations in 2014. This priority carried over into 2015 because it is hard to execute. For many organizations, it has carried over again into 2016. Of course, the definition of a private cloud has changed in that time, too. Some organizations are happy …

Next-Generation ITaaS Includes ITOA

IT as a Service (ITaaS) is changing nearly every day. In the past, it was mainly about automating deployment through the contents of a service catalog. Today, it has grown to include IT operations analytics (ITOA). What matters isn’t whether we can select an application from a service catalog, but rather how we monitor and react …