Accenture: How to optimise IT in your cloud estate
Businesses are being urged to get maximum value from their cloud estates with a new IT paradigm in which operating models can be more dynamic.
According to a new report from Accenture getting value from the cloud means optimising in four key areas: innovation, consumption, cost and performance.
“Whatever type of cloud environment you choose, the responsibility of managing your IT still falls to you, not the cloud provider,” points out Accenture.
Break with tradition to get value from cloud
The report Get the most out of cloud: Optimise your IT, highlights when it comes to managing your cloud estate, traditional "change management" approaches will not be adequate.
“There's no such thing as running and decommissioning physical hardware over multi-year cycles, as is common in traditional IT. Instead, capacity, consumption, cost, performance and business innovation must be continuously optimised.”
“This unprecedented pace of change demands a different way of working: an agile, cloud-optimising approach that Accenture calls Run Different.
Key points from the report include:
- Managing a cloud estate needs a new IT paradigm with dynamic operating models
- Getting value means optimising innovation, consumption, cost and performance
- Focus on optimise data, edge, networking and machine learning alongside the cloud
Accenture recommend that before a business overhauls its cloud estate they should consider the following questions:
- How should the operating model change?
- What new skills do I need?
- How should I use automation?
- How can I enforce governance through code?
- Who is responsible for security?
Optimising for new heights
Getting value in the cloud means optimising in two key areas.
Innovation
According to Accenture when IT tracks and assesses new hyperscaler services, it not only improves optimisation of the cloud estate it can also push innovation and help drive growth.
“However, there often isn’t time to evaluate the innovation potential of every release. This, too, builds a case for seeking expertise from outside the organisation. It's also a reason to create a Cloud Centre of Excellence (CoE) - a dedicated team that combines business and technical expertise to assess the potential of each cloud release.”
Consumption, cost and performance
“Optimising this involves understanding the complex interplay of cloud consumption and business processes while continuously monitoring the full stack,” says Accenture.
Machine learning can also help. “It can predict how an application’s computer should change over time with user behaviour, positioning you to better predict spikes, optimise your consumption, find the right balance between reserved and dynamic cloud instances, and add capacity when needed.”
Power of FinOps transparency
Workloads are often forgotten in the cloud raking up costs and consumption.
According to Accenture FinOps - the financial management of cloud - can help by building financial transparency into cloud operating models via a chargeback mechanism exposing the true financial cost of cloud.
“When individual application teams take responsibility for their own cloud usage and cloud costs, they’re incentivised to minimise them. The whole organisation then becomes better aligned around the total cost of ownership of the cloud estate.”
The report states that more companies are turning to third parties for their cloud. Accenture research shows that 48% of those using third-party managed services “to a great degree” report achieving the full benefits of cloud (compared with just 35% of those that don’t).
“Build optimisation, innovation and the adoption of new cloud capabilities into your day-to-day operations. That's how you run differently in the cloud—and that’s how you get the most value out of your transformation journey,” concludes Accenture.
To read more on Accenture’s report Time to Run Different click on this link
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