Cloud management oversees cloud computing resources, leveraging strategies, policies, and tools to govern and maintain clouds—public, private, or hybrid. Cloud management platforms manage and accelerate cloud usage by automating basic business processes across diverse cloud environments.
More and more often, businesses and other organizations that incorporate IT services are choosing to deploy essential applications into various cloud environments. Generally, cloud deployments can be categorized within one of three models:
- Public cloud: Public clouds are managed by businesses or other third-party organizations and are available for use by the general public and/or multiple organizations at the same time. Computing services are shared among all users, who rely on vendor-provided security measures to ensure that their data and applications are hidden from the other cloud customers.
- Private cloud: Private clouds cater exclusively to single organizations, with no sharing of computing resources with other groups. These clouds are often built and managed by the organization itself, though they may also be available through private-cloud vendors.
- Hybrid cloud: Hybrid-cloud solutions combine aspects of public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises IT infrastructure, providing orchestration, management, and application portability between each. Ideally, this allows organizations to enjoy a single, flexible cloud environment optimized for running a company's unique computing workloads.
Cloud computing brings with it a number of potential advantages, including cost savings, improved security and flexibility, reliable sustainability and scalability, and unmatched on-demand data availability. In fact, These and other benefits have resulted in an exodus of IT organizations moving all or part of their infrastructure into the cloud environment. But as organizations deploy more and more enterprise applications in the cloud, many are discovering that effectively orchestrating and monitoring these disparate applications is more than a full-time job.
Cloud management platforms provide the solution, bringing together data from all cloud-based applications, and empowering IT professionals with complete control over their dynamic computing environments.
Cloud management is a broad topic, with various platforms capable of managing one or more of the following:
Cloud data: Data management involves automating backups of important cloud-based data—typically as part of a continuity or disaster recovery strategy.
Cloud content: Hosting content is a major function of the cloud, but not all types of content have the same accessibility needs. For example, storing seldom-accessed archives in low-cost, higher-latency clouds can be more cost effective than using the same cloud for essential and non-essential content.
Cloud applications: Organizations can leverage cloud management to monitor cloud-native application usage and seamlessly scale processing or storage resources as needed.
Overall cloud service delivery: Curate cloud service offerings and deliver them to users in ab automated and packed way. This also entails provisioning of cloud resources in an automated way such as Infra as code.
Compliance and guardrails: Since it's easy to request and deploy cloud apps, it's also riskier for org's posture and compliance reasons if not monitored. Cloud management should offer basic compliance, auditing, and tracking abilities for reporting and compliance purposes.
Businesses need accurate data and actionable insights in order to make informed decisions. And while most cloud vendors offer basic reporting tools designed to help organizations secure and manage cloud applications, these tools are seldom capable of more than relaying numbers and providing alerts. Perhaps more importantly, these reporting tools are in no way unified, forcing administrators to work with a wide range of programs to laboriously acquire, compare, and distill data into something usable across the organization. Additionally, most cloud vendors provide cloud management on their own platforms, which causes challenges when multiple providers are used concurrently, or when operating in a hybrid environment.
To facilitate improved management, cloud-management software is deployed into the target cloud environment. Operating as a virtual machine containing its own server and database, the cloud-management solution captures cloud-app activity and performance data, analyzing it and sending the results to a central dashboard. Insights from all connected cloud applications are then available through a web-based interface. IT directors can also exercise control over each cloud app, issuing commands and making changes through the virtual machine when needed. Cloud-management solutions facilitate increased visibility and control and help reduce the amount of manual labor that goes into managing cloud applications.
Used correctly, cloud management may improve cloud performance across the board, while also positively impacting other areas of the business. Potential benefits include the following:
A major and growing challenge for IT directors is cloud sprawl, where the number and complexity of cloud resources used throughout an organization expands beyond IT’s ability to manage. Cloud management not only helps IT keep better track of cloud applications and their relevant datasets, it may also be employed to identify those applications that are best suited for off-premises, effectively reducing the number of workloads and data moved into the cloud.
Without cloud management, IT administrators have the unenviable task of having to individually monitor every cloud resource employed by the organization. Cloud management takes this responsibility off their hands, collecting and analyzing data from internal and external cloud applications. This provides a common view of all relevant cloud services, giving administrators the information and insights they need to optimize cloud-resource usage.
The advanced monitoring and analytics capabilities of cloud management likewise help inform strategy. Providing clear insights into user actions and how workloads are processed in the cloud, cloud management’s improved visibility means that IT and other decision makers are able to balance workloads and take full advantage of available cloud capacity more effectively. Additionally, built-in instance automation can dynamically move workloads from private into public clouds during peak traffic times, allowing businesses to address demand without having to provision larger private-cloud infrastructures.
Although modern cloud vendors tend to provide effective security measures and are much more likely to remain up to date on security patches, there is still a risk involved in operating in the cloud. And, because most vendors do not take full responsibility for cloud-based data in the event that a breach occurs, organizations are cautioned to take additional steps to secure their cloud resources. Cloud management dashboards and trend-analysis tools help users identify potential weak points and respond quickly to emergent security situations.
With the value and potential risk involved in data management within a company, it is absolutely vital that users at all levels adhere to established cloud-usage policies and guidelines. Cloud management tools allow administrators to review cloud usage and identify non-compliant actions. They can then work to remediate the situation. This information is also beneficial in that it may inform future training and policy reviews.
Finally, cloud management helps organizations save money and get a larger return on their cloud investments. With cloud management, administrators can more accurately determine the best situations for using different cloud deployment options. They can then allocate available resources more effectively, eliminating unused cloud resources and getting more out of the resources that are being used.
As the various advantages suggest, effective cloud management can be a major boon for organizations leveraging cloud computing resources. But while the benefits are substantial, several challenges may arise that require strategic solutions for seamless operations. Potential obstacles include:
Given the ease and accessibility cloud computing provides, it can be tempting to overuse. Unfortunately, this can lead to the uncontrolled proliferation of cloud instances and services, resulting in a complex and decentralized cloud infrastructure. To mitigate Cloud Sprawl, organizations should implement strict governance policies, automated resource tracking tools, and centralized management platforms that provide visibility and control over cloud assets.
Most cloud services operate on a pay-as-you-go model, meaning that organizations who wish to budget for cloud usage must accurately assess and forecast their costs. Failure to understand the pricing models and optimize resource usage can result in unexpected expenditures. On the other hand, implementing cost monitoring tools, conducting regular audits, and adopting a strategic approach to resource allocation help organizations optimize costs and ensure efficient utilization of cloud resources.
Although in most cases reliable cloud providers offer improved security over traditional data centers, entrusting sensitive data to external vendors still raises apprehensions about data breaches and unauthorized access. Employing encryption mechanisms, implementing access controls, and conducting regular security audits are crucial measures to help fortify cloud security. Additionally, organizations should stay vigilant, keeping up on the latest security threats and updates.
Interoperability poses a challenge as organizations attempt to integrate multiple cloud services and platforms. Diverse technologies and standards across different cloud providers can hinder seamless communication and data exchange. Adopting standardized protocols, APIs, and ensuring compatibility between cloud solutions are necessary steps to enhancing interoperability. Organizations should consider cloud management platforms that support multi-cloud environments, fostering better integration and coordination.
While cloud management is something of an umbrella term used to describe a range of strategies, processes, and tools, when organizations invest in cloud management solutions, they usually work within a cloud management platform (CMP).
CMP solutions consist of a comprehensive set of APIs designed to pull data from multiple cloud resources, and then present that data through a unified interface. Top CMP options give users complete visibility into every aspect of their private, public, or hybrid cloud infrastructure. This includes details related to how the cloud resource is being used, where workloads should be run, whether certain areas are not being used efficiently, where security vulnerabilities may be present, and whether users are operating in compliance with established policies, guidelines, and best practices. Incorporating advanced automation and intelligent analysis, CMPs can free up IT directors from repetitive, time-consuming cloud-management tasks, allowing them to focus their energies on more-strategic pursuits.
With so much depending on the cloud, modern businesses need a reliable partner in managing cloud resources without exceeding established budgets. ServiceNow, the leader in IT management solutions, brings its expertise to cloud management.
Cloud Management from ServiceNow is built on the award-winning ServiceNow AI Platform and provides tools for organizations across any industry to reduce spend and minimize risk while managing applications in the cloud. ServiceNow Cloud Management solution is built across many capablities like Cloud Discovery, Cloud Service Catalog, Cloud Configuration Governance, Security Operations, Cloud Observabilities, and Cloud Cost Management, empowering users to schedule operations, govern discovered and provisioned assets, create personalized service catalogs, and more quickly deliver consistent, secure, and auditable services across multiple cloud environments. The end result? Increased agility, reduced costs, and improved returns from optimized cloud governance—. ServiceNow makes it all possible.
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