“Roughly 35 percent of cloud computing spending is wasted via instances that are over-provisioned and not optimized according to RightScale.”
In these ‘Covid’ times, many people have become lean, toned and fit. With no-travel, work-from-home (WFH) and less-social interactions, the self-reflection has definitely had a positive effect in terms of shedding pounds from the waist.
This is very good for individuals. But the same issue needs to be addressed within any enterprise – what is happening with your ‘cloud-obesity’?
What is cloud obesity?
In simple terms, avoiding ‘cloud obesity’ is the practice of consuming only the right type of resources at the right time at the right price. Sounds like a healthy-lifestyle mantra. And yes, that’s what it is.
Cloud allows us to consume a plethora of resources at a moment’s notice. But it’s important to understand that this capability has a downside. Just like the right diet plan for any individual should include a balanced diet in correct proportions from appropriate sources, similarly, managing your cloud obesity is ensuring that:
- Only the correct resource is used
- Don’t use M-Series if D-Series would suffice.
- Don’t use premium disks if not required.
- At the correct time
- Scaling down is as important as scaling up.
- At the right price
- Verify use of the appropriate licensing (using reserved instance discounts, Office 365 license management), correct billing model with a service provider?
- And avoid any waste
- Unallocated disks, IP addresses and cloud migrations.
In these lean times, it is imperative that every enterprise knows their cloud obesity or healthy BMI and how it is trending.
Why?
Because just like an individual’s BMI needs to be kept in check and should trend in right direction, similarly, cloud obesity for an enterprise can very quickly spiral out of control causing headachs, heartburn and sleepless nights for stakeholders. And worse still, a big monetary bill which creeps up while no one is paying attention.
In my professional interactions with many enterprises in terms of cloud obesity, each can be classified into one of the following categories:
The unfortunate truth in my experience is that no enterprise could be classified in the stage ‘Unconscious – mature’. In fact, most enterprises are in stage Conscious – Immature’, some are in ‘Conscious – Mature’ and surprisingly some big enterprise accounts are even in the stage ‘Unconscious – Immature’.
This needs to change.
How to Resolve Cloud Obesity
“61% of enterprise line-of-business and technical leaders report COVID-19 is having a significant impact on their budgets, initiatives and programs.”
Every enterprise owes it to themselves and their team members to review their current cloud spend and ensure that cloud obesity/cost optimization, ala, healthy lifestyle, becomes not only a tactical but also a strategic goal.
Wipro has identified several key areas that we believe can assist any organization to reduce OpEx/CapEx expenditures or help develop program-based incentives.
Wipro recommendations for a healthier lifestyle on cloud
If you would like to talk about cloud obesity solutions, please contact me at Ninad.kanthi@wipro.com.
About The Author
Ninad Kanthi
Senior Cloud Consultancy Partner, UKI, Wipro Ltd
Ninad Kanthi is Senior Partner in the cloud advisory team and has over 23+ years of experience in designing, developing and implementing scalable, reliable and secure architecture for enterprise customers.
In the current cloud advisory role, Ninad heads the cloud app modernization/transformation efforts within Wipro. He is spearheading the cloud adoption within enterprise customers in UKI and CE region. He is passionate about healthy lifestyle living be it in an individual space or within the enterprise cloud area.