Our Thoughts on IT Matters

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12 for ‘21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Ten: Reserve Your Instance

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 21 here). Today we review the fourth installment in the series: Reserve Your Instance In exchange for an upfront commitment of 1 or 3 years, AWS (“ Reserved instances”), Microsoft Azure (‘Reserved Savings’) and GCP (‘Commitment Price’] offer significant cost savings (anywhere from ~29% up to 72%) ...

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12 for ‘21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number 9: Storage Classes

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 12 here). AWS, Azure and GCP offer data storage services that include a range of options in term of cost and performance. You can choose from several different storage classes (and pricing) depending on how frequently the data will be accessed, how long you need to store the data, and the ...

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Cloud Migration Lock-In: Risk to be Avoided

Supplier lock-in has been a major issue with savvy decision makers for many years, and with good reason. Allowing your company to be overly subjugated to a specific supplier (often with little control of the situation) often turns into a monopolistic relationship. The script gets flipped and rather than exercising your buyer power, you become the passive party, beholden to any changes in terms and conditions having little power to stop it. Unfortunately, with the exodus from data centers to the cloud, companies are now finding themselves being locked-in to AWS, Azure or Google with their increased need for cloud flexibility and scalability ...

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12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Eight: Elastic IPs

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 12 here). Our eighth chapter in the series: Elastic IPs Elastic IPs (‘EIPs’) An Elastic IP is static and is assigned to a given instance regardless of the instance's state. The “elasticity” of the IP address enables you to stop EC2 instances and transfer the IP address to another EC2 instance—or ...

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Oracle's Latest Program to Reduce (?) Support Costs

Oracle Rewards! Oracle recently launched a new program selling ocean-front property in Arkansas. Bonus! North of the Arctic Circle in Alaska, they also have land available for purchase. Rewards and Credits! The deal is that for every acre you buy in Alaska, you get a credit toward your Arkansas property! Sounds like a good deal, right? Except however, when you fully understand that Arkansas is not on the ocean, and you have zero need for land in Alaska (no offense meant to Alaskans). Yes, they are not really selling land, but in classic Oracle fashion, they have put together a ‘rewards’ program that purports to lower your support costs but ...

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Hidden Costs in Your Technology Agreements: Beware the 'I' Word

Inflation impacts the cost of nearly all your supplier agreements. Look closely at your IT agreements (especially your Cloud agreements). Even though the cost of technology goes down over time, and technology advancements make processes less manual, less error prone, less expensive, and more automated, many of your agreements still have antiquated clauses allowing your suppliers to *increase* your costs on an annual basis by an amount equal to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) amount, and generally include an accelerator above that amount; something like CPI + 3%, which would provide a contractual right of your supplier to increase your costs ...

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12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Seven: Spot Pricing

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 12 here). Our seventh chapter in the series: Use Spot Pricing Spot Instances are spare compute capacity at a steep discount (up to 90%) to On-Demand Instances. Spot Instances can go down with very little notice. While they are frequently used to supplement On-Demand Instances, they aren’t meant to ...

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12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Six: CloudWatch with Autoscaling

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 12 here). Our sixth chapter in the series: CloudWatch with Autoscaling AWS CloudWatch (Azure Monitor, GCP Monitoring) enables you to collect consumption metrics and set up alarms to invoke actions. These tools collect these metrics, allows you to visualize them and to define alarms with the ...

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12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Five: Size it Right

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 12 here). Our fifth chapter in the series: Size it Right! Once you have deployed resources for a while, you have to check that your instances are optimal. For most clients, instances are set with the right configuration at time of the launch. As your consumption and business environment evolve, ...

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Microsoft Wants To Be Your Sole Solution Provider for Security and Compliance. Do You Really Want That?

The news has constant reminders of the risks of an unsecure infrastructure. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware event recently caused blood pressure spikes in boardrooms and C-Suites all over the world. Microsoft continues to expand their security and compliance offerings, with a dizzying and confusing array of services, bundles, and add-ons to your 365 subscriptions. As we come into June, the end of the Microsoft fiscal year, clients are getting heavy pressure from management to “do something” about the very high-risk security and compliance requirements in today’s enterprise – and Microsoft is happy to sell “solutions”. But are they really ...

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