Once organizations have migrated workloads to the cloud, it is very common for costs to be higher than expected, leaving both business and technical leaders wondering the reasons why. Syntax can play a crucial role in helping your organization address cost overruns and optimize your cloud spending. Here's what you can do to get a handle on your cloud spend and move toward alignment with your original cloud migration business case:

Assessments

• Comprehensive Cost Assessment: Conduct a detailed analysis of current cloud usage and costs to identify areas of overspending and inefficiencies.
• Rightsizing Resources: Evaluate and adjust the size of cloud resources to match actual usage, eliminating unnecessary expenditures.
• Reserved Instances and Savings Plans: Implement cost-saving measures such as reserved instances or savings plans to reduce costs for predictable workloads.

Optimization

• Cost Monitoring and Alerts: Set up real-time monitoring and alerts to track spending and detect anomalies or unexpected spikes in costs.
• Optimization Recommendations: Provide specific recommendations for optimizing cloud architecture and services, such as implementing auto-scaling and scheduling non-essential resources to shut down during off-peak hours.
• Budgeting and Forecasting: Help establish accurate service-based budgeting and forecasting processes to better predict and manage future cloud costs.
• Security and Compliance: Ensure that cost optimization does not compromise security or compliance, maintaining a robust, secure, and recoverable cloud environment.

Reporting & Planning

• Cost Allocation and Tagging: Implement resource tagging and cost allocation to understand how different departments or projects contribute to overall cloud spending.
• FinOps Practices: Introduce FinOps practices to align cloud spending with business value, ensuring that investments in cloud resources deliver expected returns.
• Regular Reviews: Conduct regular reviews of cloud usage and costs to ensure ongoing alignment with business goals and to identify emerging cost-saving opportunities.
• Optimization Audits: Perform periodic optimization audits to ensure that the organization continues to benefit from the most cost-effective solutions.
• Scalability Planning: Use the cost savings to plan for future scalability, ensuring that the organization can grow and adapt its cloud environment as needed.
• Advanced Tools and Analytics: Utilize advanced cost management tools and analytics to provide deeper insights into cloud spending and usage patterns.

If you need help coming up with a plan or executing on an existing plan, Syntax’s global team of certified FinOps practitioners can help.

Other than cost savings and scalability, digital innovation is one of the primary benefits of moving to cloud. Cloud-based AI, machine learning, IoT, and integration solutions can provide cost-effective replacements of on-premises software. Deciding what to do, how to justify funding, and where to get started can be a challenge. You should consider the following:

• Awareness and Education: Educate your organization about the potential industry specific benefits and opportunities of hyperscaler innovation solutions.
• Access to Expertise: Provide access to experts with deep knowledge of hyperscaler solutions and industry best practices.
• Strategic Planning: Work with stakeholders to develop a strategic plan for innovation that aligns with business goals and objectives.
• Technology Roadmap: Create a technology roadmap that outlines potential areas for innovation and the steps needed to implement solutions.
• Project Feasibility and Assessment: Conduct feasibility studies and assessments to identify the most promising innovation projects.
• Pilot Program Development: Assist in developing and launching pilot programs to test hyperscaler solutions in a controlled environment.
• Resource Allocation: Help allocate resources effectively to ensure successful project initiation and execution.
• Success Metrics and Evaluation: Define clear success metrics and evaluation criteria to assess pilot performance and document results.
• Feedback and Iteration: Gather feedback from stakeholders and iterate on pilot projects to refine and improve solutions.
• Adoption Strategies: Develop strategies to increase adoption across the organization, including training, communication, and change management.
• Outcome Analysis: Analyze business outcomes to clarify the value and impact of implemented solutions, and identify areas for improvement.
• Replication and Scaling: Assist in replicating successful solutions in other parts of the organization to drive further value.
• Continuous Improvement: Implement processes for continuous improvement and innovation to build on initial successes.

Syntax works with customers on building digital innovation roadmaps focused on their specific industries. Our work in traditional AI, Generative AI, analytics and machine learning, IIoT, and integration demonstrates the art of the possible and how we can help customers drive measurable results.

Once organizations have moved some or many workloads to the cloud, governance over the workloads and departments who need or manage these workloads can get overwhelming. Cloud sprawl, especially for organizations that have embraced a multicloud strategy, can be managed with the right approach:

1. Regularly Review and Right-Size Resources

• Resource Monitoring and Analysis: Continuously monitor and analyze cloud resources to identify underutilized or over-provisioned assets.
• Automated Recommendations: Implement tools that offer automated recommendations for right-sizing resources based on usage patterns and business needs.
• Regular Audits: Conduct regular audits to ensure that resources are aligned with current requirements and adjust accordingly.
• Tag Ownership: Ensure provisioned resources are tagged with the owners and/or cost centers who are responsible for them. Create a process that encourages regular review and holds individuals accountable for spend.

2. Implement Auto-Scaling and/or Schedule Downtime

• Auto-Scaling Configuration: Configure auto-scaling policies to automatically adjust resources based on demand, ensuring efficient utilization.
• Scheduled Downtime Management: Set up schedules to power down non-essential resources during off-peak hours, reducing unnecessary costs.
• Performance Monitoring: Continuously monitor performance to ensure that scaling and scheduling do not impact service levels or availability.

3. Allocate Costs to Business Units and Providing Regular Reporting

• Cost Allocation Framework: Develop a cost allocation framework that accurately assigns cloud costs to different business units, projects, or departments.
• Regular Reporting: Implement regular reporting and dashboards to provide transparency into cloud spending and usage across the organization.Stakeholder Engagement:
• Stakeholder Engagement: Engage with stakeholders to ensure they understand their cost responsibilities and can take action to manage their budgets effectively.

4. Identity and Access Management (IAM)

• Implement role-based access controls (RBAC): Ensure access rights are restricted to only those resources who need them, especially rights related to provisioning.
• Manage identities, permissions, and authentication mechanisms: Ensure you are reviewing authorization and access regularly and have automation set up to alert and response to changes.

5. Policy Enforcement

• Acceptable Use: Create policies and rules that dictate acceptable and unacceptable cloud activity, covering areas such as data security, system integration, cost management, and legal and regulatory compliance.
• Operational Efficiency: Implement operational efficiency measures that establish clear guidelines and processes for managing cloud resources, including data lifecycle management, infrastructure, configurations, and operational workflows.
• Automate the enforcement of policies for resource usage, security, and cost: Most cloud providers have mechanisms to help organizations managed these processes, as well as ensure they are being followed. Use tools like cloud-native governance services (e.g., AWS Config, Azure Policy, Google Cloud Organization Policies, Oracle Cloud Guard).

6. Additional Support

• Continuous Improvement: Encourage continuous improvement of governance practices by regularly reviewing and updating policies to reflect changes in technology and business needs.
• Risk Management: Assist in identifying and mitigating risks associated with cloud operations, ensuring compliance with industry regulations and standards.
• Strategic Alignment: Ensure that governance practices are aligned with strategic business objectives and support overall organizational goals.

Syntax offers our customers tools and policies based on best practices to ensure a strong governance program for your cloud workloads.

Once organizations have moved workloads to the cloud, security and compliance become a critical area for an organization to implement and maintain best practices, yet many do not have the inhouse expertise to execute. The impact of not having industry best practices can be disastrous for any organization. Ensure you are performing the following activities:

1. Centrally Administer Identity & Access Management (IAM)

• IAM Policy Development: Develop and implement a comprehensive IAM policy that aligns with best practices and organizational needs.
• Regular Audits: Conduct regular audits of IAM policies to ensure compliance and identify areas for improvement.
• Access Controls: Implement robust access controls, including role-based access management, to ensure that only authorized users have access to critical resources.

2. Use of Security Tools and Defense-in-Depth Principles

• Security Tool Implementation: Select and deploy advanced security tools that provide multiple layers of protection, such as firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, encryption technologies, vulnerability management, end point detection, and cloud security posture management.
• Defense-in-Depth Strategy: Develop a defense-in-depth strategy that integrates various security measures to protect against a wide range of threats.
• Continuous Monitoring: Provide continuous monitoring to detect and respond to security incidents in real-time.

3. Leverage Multi-Factor Authentication and Advanced Security Solutions

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Implement MFA to add an additional layer of security, ensuring that access to cloud services requires more than just a password.
• Privileged Access Management (PAM): Deploy PAM solutions to control and monitor access to critical systems by privileged users, reducing the risk of insider threats.
• Zero Trust Network Access: Develop and implement zero trust network access solutions to verify every user and device attempting to access network resources.

4. Third-Party Vulnerability Scanning and Endpoint Protection

• Vulnerability Scanning: Services to perform regular vulnerability scans of cloud environments to identify potential weaknesses and recommendations for remediation of critical vulnerabilities.
• Risk Register Management: Maintain a risk register to document findings and track remediation efforts, ensuring that vulnerabilities are addressed promptly.
• Endpoint Detection and Response: Cybersecurity solution that continuously monitors endpoint devices, collecting detailed data on their activities to detect suspicious behaviors, investigate potential threats, and take actions to respond and remediate security incidents in real-time.

5. Continuous Improvement

• Security Architecture Review: Perform regular reviews of the security architecture to ensure it remains robust and aligned with evolving threats and business needs.
• Policy Review and Updates: Regularly review and update security policies and procedures to reflect changes in technology, business operations, and regulatory requirements.
• Regular Reporting: Provide regular security reports to stakeholders, highlighting key metrics, incidents, and improvement initiatives.Provide regular security reports to stakeholders, highlighting key metrics, incidents, and improvement initiatives.

Security in the cloud can be overwhelming and put your organization at high risk. Syntax provides customers with comprehensive, 24 x 7 security solutions that help them mitigate risk.

Once organizations have moved workloads to the cloud, cloud resiliency and recovery capabilities are often overlooked or underestimated. Depending on the workload type, recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) need to be determined and implemented by workload type, and costs need to be appropriately estimated. The following activities need to be considered:

1. Uncertainty About Recovery Capabilities

• Assessment and Analysis: Conduct a comprehensive assessment of the current cloud infrastructure to identify potential weaknesses and gaps in disaster recovery (DR) and failover plans.
• Documentation of DR Plans: Assist in documenting detailed disaster recovery and failover plans, ensuring that all stakeholders are aware of processes and protocols.
• Regular Testing and Drills: Implement a schedule for regular testing and drills to validate recovery procedures and identify areas for improvement.

2. Reasonable Confidence in Recovery

• Enhancing Current Strategies: Work with the organization to enhance existing DR and failover strategies, focusing on minimizing disruption and meeting recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO).
• Resiliency Optimization: Optimize cloud infrastructure to leverage regions and availability zones for robust replication and failover solutions.
• Cyber Resiliency: Integrate cyber resiliency strategies into DR plans to protect against threats like ransomware, ensuring data integrity and availability.

3. High Confidence Due to Regular Testing

• Continuous Improvement: Focus on continuous improvement of DR strategies through analytics and lessons learned from testing and real-world incidents.
• Automation and Orchestration: Implement automation and orchestration tools to streamline failover and recovery processes, reducing manual intervention and potential errors.
• Advanced Monitoring: Deploy advanced monitoring solutions to quickly detect and respond to infrastructure failures, ensuring rapid recovery.
• Geographic Resilience: Design and implement geographic redundancy by utilizing multiple regions and availability zones to ensure high availability and disaster recovery.
• Data Backup Solutions: Establish robust data backup solutions that align with business continuity requirements, ensuring data is protected and recoverable. Immutability should also be considered.
• Cyber Resilience: DR solutions that are resilient to cyber attacks require immutable backups, better network segmentation, tighter access controls, and third-party oversight and testing. Consider engaging an outside consultant to help you understand how well you could weather a ransomware attack.

If you need help creating, improving, or executing upon your comprehensive cloud resiliency and recovery plan, Syntax’s global team of advisors and certified engineers can help.