Enterprises that want to modernize their traditional workloads are increasingly using cloud computing to achieve scalability and performance. Now, "cloud first" and "cloud native" often appear in enterprise growth and modernization strategy. This interest is largely driven by the accessibility and scale of ultra large scale cloud computing providers, such as AWS, Google cloud, Microsoft azure and Alibaba, which are at the forefront of cloud computing technology progress and innovative delivery methods. (source: enterprise network d1net)

Gartner predicts that by 2021, more than 75% of medium and large enterprises will adopt multi cloud or hybrid IT strategy. Multi cloud strategy is helping enterprises take advantage of excellent cloud services. The reason why these multi cloud strategies are different is that they allow enterprises to take advantage of the elasticity and performance of cloud computing services provided by different cloud computing providers at any given point in time. Different cloud computing services can not only coexist in enterprise business, but also provide high-quality performance in response to changing workload. However, this dynamic and heterogeneous cloud environment also makes it difficult for enterprise operation and security teams to track their cloud computing inventory and workload at a given point in time.

As people enter a new era, enterprises are increasingly migrating their workload to public cloud, private cloud or hybrid cloud. These systems are boundless, adaptable and have fundamental resources. This requires a modern cloud computing resource inventory management method, which can scan different cloud computing services, and fully display the cloud computing applications and infrastructure in use at a given point in time. Cloud optimization will play an important role. The latest cloud optimization methods and tools can help enterprises with heterogeneous cloud environment clearly identify all running cloud computing instances and obtain high-quality value from cloud computing investment. Cloud optimization plays an important role in multi cloud environment. It can maximize the return on investment of cloud computing by enhancing visibility, improving optimization and reducing risk, so as to help enterprises that are trying to manage their heterogeneous cloud computing instances.

Multi cloud and hybrid cloud are the new specifications

The multi cloud and mixed cloud approaches are not the only ones, they are common. In previous blogs by industry experts on cloud computing interoperability, it was described that interoperability can give enterprises the freedom to retain their existing cloud computing investments and enhance them with new era cloud computing solutions. In a multi cloud environment, reliability, performance and security are the most concerned issues for enterprises. The first step to address these challenges is to create a unified view of the business and it performance of all cloud computing instances running at a given point in time. This is easier said than done. This process must address the complexity of the IT environment:

A lot of data, infrastructure and applications are moving in the cloud. Different cloud computing deployment models, such as public cloud, private cloud or hybrid cloud. Varying degrees of confidentiality and complexity of workloads moving on cloud platforms. Cloud computing deployment occurs outside the purview of IT departments (shadow it), so it is difficult to get a single view of all cloud workloads running.
Traditional solutions, such as configuration management databases, cannot adapt to this growing complexity because they are designed for a well orchestrated deployment by it leaders. This drives the need for a new set of tools. These tools can manage the breadth of dynamically changing cloud computing workloads and provide a single consolidated view in real time. This requires cloud optimization tools, which can help enterprises manage different cloud computing instances through a simple integrated view.

The road of cloud optimization

Cloud optimization helps enterprises comprehensively identify all cloud computing instances of applications, databases, containers and related services running at a given point in time. Cloud optimization provides a single integrated view of various cloud services and cloud platforms within the enterprise. It helps security and operations teams manage these services effectively and get high performance from cloud computing investments. Cloud optimization reduces manual intervention in inventory management through powerful automatic identification tools that can work in heterogeneous cloud environments.

The enhanced visibility of cloud computing services provided by identification tools can help enterprises optimize their cloud investment across different cloud platforms, and effectively manage their cloud computing workload for high-quality performance. By reducing the unknowns, it also helps to reduce the risk of cloud computing deployment. Cloud computing helps to greatly improve the return on cloud computing investment by breaking the costs of different computing, storage and network workloads, thus achieving separate budget allocation for different workloads and cloud platforms.

Ways of cloud optimization

Cloud optimization is more and more mentioned in cloud computing planning and migration discussions, because it can help enterprises get greater value from their cloud computing investment. Now, many companies are offering cloud optimization solutions:

Mature vendors such as BMC software provide a one-stop solution called helix platform, covering the entire cloud migration process from migration planning, asset discovery, multi platform cloud cost prediction to integrated cloud security and compliance verification.

Ultra large scale cloud computing vendors, including AWS, Google cloud and Microsoft azure, are also integrating optimization capabilities on their platforms, although they are currently limited to application portfolio assessment. Google cloud optimization uses restful API to discover resources, such as Google cloud hard disk, image, project, service account, snapshot, virtual machine configuration and their relationship. It also provides a comprehensive view of Cloud Application of Microsoft azure. Open source cloud optimization tools, including twist lock, enter the market with network optimization and other functions to optimize cloud native infrastructure and applications, such as docker registries and kubernetes API servers.

Cloudscape of RISC networks can effectively transfer local workload to cloud platform by fully optimizing all infrastructure workload and automatically organizing information into relevant business services. This helps enterprises evaluate, optimize, and cost the workload to be transferred to the cloud platform.

Red hat satellite is a system management solution that enables enterprises to deploy, configure, and maintain systems across physical, virtual, and cloud computing environments. Satellite provides configuration, remote management, and monitoring of multiple Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployments through a centralized tool.

Cloud computing is one of the many cloud based solutions that you can easily plan to build and deploy on your own. By working with partners like Accenture that understand the complexity of today's cloud environment, businesses can benefit from it and work together to define the right optimization capabilities and suppliers needed to achieve their business goals. No matter what stage of the cloud migration process, cloud optimization solutions can provide a comprehensive view of cloud computing deployment and help reduce total cost of ownership.