We’re joined this week by Kumolus Co-founder and CloudBolt CTO Michael Salleo to discuss what we’re dubbing “the governance problem”. We explore the growing oversight challenges that every organization deals with in regards to cloud usage, how those challenges change based on company size, industry, and the ways they aren’t so different across the board. What issues have arisen during the pandemic? Can you define a term as broad as “cloud governance”? Can governance be automated? We answer these questions and more.

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What does Cloud Management mean in 2021? Does the term mean too many things to too many people?

Is there still a use for a Cloud Management Platform? On this week’s Cloud Junkies we explore these questions and more with CloudBolt CTO, Rick Kilcoyne, and search for answers while attempting to lend some clarity to an industry that has seen rapid expansion in the past few years.

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On the very first episode of The Cloud Junkies, I sit down with CloudBolt’s founders, Auggy da Rocha and Bernard Sanders, for a discussion about the evolution of cloud technology, how it ties into both the founding and growth of CloudBolt, and explore what it takes to grow a cloud management company from the ground up.

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CloudBolt is committed to delivering solutions that our customers need during their hybrid cloud and multi-cloud journeys. On the heels of our 2020 acquisitions of SovLabs and Kumolus, we’re excited to share that these products are coming together to meet our customers in their digital transformations.  

We’re pleased to share several new features across our portfolio of cloud management and integration solutions to help customers accelerate and simplify their hybrid and multi-cloud journeys. Our January release provides enhancements to support greater collaboration with DevOps teams, richer integrations for Terraform and VMware vRealize Automation (vRA), as well as improved cost management capabilities for both public and private cloud workloads.  

New Integration Capabilities with Ansible Tower and Support for Scripting-as-a-Service 

The release of OneFuse 1.2, the only codeless integration platform for infrastructure automation, introduces a new module for integration support with Ansible Tower. This integration will enable admins to create their own Ansible-powered services that other teams, tools and scripts can consume via platform providers or API without requiring direct access or understanding of Ansible Tower.  

With this groundbreaking new feature, enterprises can: 

Our OneFuse 1.2 release also includes the introduction of the Scripting Module, which allows customers to create scripting-as-a-service, fully inventoried and reusable across automation platforms and tools. With this feature users can: 

The types of scripts users can include but are not limited to: 

Cost optimization capabilities for VMware vCenter and Azure environments through Kumolus

We announced the acquisition of Kumolus, an award-winning cloud cost management platform, in Q3 last year and we’re excited that acquisition is now complete. This Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform supports cost management, optimization and compliance for public clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.  

Through our winter release, Kumolus now supports VMware vCenter. This support was requested by our customers who want to manage their on-premises environment through the powerful Kumolus platform. They asked for an easier way to optimize resources managed through vCenter and the same granular visibility they have for AWS and Azure. Through this support, customers can now: 

We’ve also added more optimization capabilities within Kumolus for the Azure environment. For customers invested in Azure looking to find opportunities to automatically save money, this will be a game–changer. Many times, these services are overlooked through no fault of the user. Now, based on your usage, Kumolus finds you saving opportunities for the following services in addition to our current support:  

You can also customize reports and dashboards within Kumolus. Thus, if you are a CFO (or CISO, CFO, cloud admin) and you’re interested in seeing certain data points you can do that very easily. Thus, all your important KPIs can be found on a single dashboard. Also, you can create favorite reports and check the information by user, function, services, etc., and save all the reports under your favorites tab.  

If you’re interested in trending information it’s simple to compare information, such as resource usage by a user, over certain days, months, or years. You can define the period for that comparison to get a direct answer to your questions. 

Finally, Kumolus is now pre-integrated with Slack for alerts and notifications. Thus, when certain user–defined conditions are met (CPU usage, compliance deviations, etc.) a certain user or channel gets notified immediately in Slack. This helps you monitor and manage your environment better by reducing your reaction time (more integrations for alerting coming soon). 

Richer Terraform integration for DevOps in CloudBolt 9.4.4 

In our 9.4.4 release, CloudBolt Cloud Management Platform has enhanced Terraform support by adding new Terraform Orchestration Actions. These hooks enable CloudBolt administrators to customize Terraform’s execution via user defined CloudBolt Plugin code. These hooks can help:  

These actions provide tools for admins to customize Terraform integration and avoid Professional Services engagements. 

To see all these features in action, schedule a demo today.

AWS re:Invent is typically a big draw this time of year. It has been symbolic to closing a year in technology strong in Las Vegas. This year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic it’s been moved to an all-online format. (For some people, that might be a good excuse to set up casino floors at home, too!) Let’s talk what has been announced so far at this three week-long event.

  1. Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) Anywhere: Did you dream of running ECS management within your own data centers? I am sure that many healthcare, finance and government customers would want to manage containers better. AWS just announced this to have consistent management planes in both environments. It promises to containerize the on-premises workloads for data centers and then connecting them to AWS cloud as needed.
  2. Amazon Elastic Kubernetes (EKS) Anywhere: Similar to ECS Anywhere, EKS Anywhere lets you run your Kubernetes-based containers in your data center to deploy, upgrade and operate the clusters. This will simplify the management and deployment of clusters for more power in your hands.
  3. AWS Outposts get smaller for remote facilities: For any bank, manufacturer, or healthcare provider, challenges amplify when you have a remote facility somewhere. That facility might be critical enough that it needs to be supported by IT but without using major resources. The facility could be serving a niche client or a lab. For that, AWS Outpost might provide a simple solution for this and it is now coming in two smaller flavors. These Outpost options will not only be small (1U and 2Us) but they will also connect to other AWS services such as EC2, ECS, etc. Thus, less management overhead for IT while empowering users in those remote facilities.
  4. New EC2 Mac instances: This is an unexpected release. This will help AWS users run macOS on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), underscoring that AWS is a customer-first organization at its core.
  5. New EC2 instances: Amazon has been talking about different chip manufacturers to provide more value to its customers: faster speed at cheaper price points. They are rolling out new EC2 instances based on AMD GPUs, AWS Graviton processors, etc. These new instances will provide more flexibility to the end users while giving more scale to AWS. That’s a win-win.

To learn more about AWS re:Invent stay tuned and stay connected! We are just getting started. In the meantime, please check out our new Guide to AWS Cost Optimization.

CloudBolt 9.4.1 is now generally available!

This release has been focused on couple of key asks from our customers and prospective customers. The goal is to provide a level of deeper self-service IT using VMware NSX-T and Microsoft Azure Shared Image Gallery (SIG), thus, resulting in your users not spending days or even hours on integrations and instead focus on more strategic outcomes.

Simplify Networking with VMware NSX-T support

NSX-T brings the magic of virtualization to the networking resources in your data center environment. It allows users to be more agile and abstract networking resources for ease of virtualized provisioning.

Our NSX-T integration enables self-service IT for the entire application stack for vCenter based environments: network, servers, software. This creates flexibility without users being experts in network, cloud, or application administration. Multi-tier blueprints from CloudBolt give users the power to provision, manage day-two activities, or shut down resources easily. The snapshots below show our NSX-T blueprint that can help you deliver resources faster.

This NSX-T integration helps you automate deployment of your entire vCenter-based application stack with complete security and control. It makes you more proactive and avoid any costly mistakes while improving productivity.

Leverage Microsoft Azure Shared Image Gallery with Confidence

Microsoft Shared Image Galleries help customers manage, share, and distribute VM images within and across multiple Azure regions​. If you are an Azure customer, you will realize this is a powerful way to distribute the same VM images across various regions.

In our 9.3 version, we helped customers to import images from Shared Image Gallery. Plus, while ordering a server, customers could add accelerated networking and enterprise-level environments using a blueprint. Now in 9.4.1, we are helping users automatically import the image from all the regions and then replicate it across regions with just a few clicks.

This update helps our customers leverage the complete functionality of Shared Image Gallery. It helps you get more efficient in managing Azure environments while being error free. This avoids a lot of rework while keeping up with the business demands. In summary, CloudBolt 9.4.1 is a big step in helping you deliver self-service IT in your enterprise. Provisioning virtualized networking with NSX-T and more automation in Azure based environments makes your IT more flexible in these challenging Covid-19 times. Don’t let it slow you down.

Schedule a quick demo with our product experts to see all this in action.

Is your organization dipping its toes into the cloud for the first time, or is it fully immersed? Whatever the case, you’ve probably encountered the words “cloud governance.” But what do they mean, and why should they even matter? Today we’re going to discuss why a cloud governance solution is not a “good-to-have” but a “must-have” feature.

Cloud governance refers to the implementation and development of controls meant to manage compliance, security, budget, and access in the cloud. Sound familiar? At first glance, cloud governance may sound a lot like IT governance, just cloud-based. It’s not, however.

You see, traditional IT governance has a lot of bottlenecks for users. Sometimes, a simple request has to pass through several levels of approvals by admins and managers. This isn’t the case with the cloud. The cloud is decentralized, and it’s all about speed, agility, and cost savings.

Automation is the key difference between IT governance and cloud governance. In the cloud, users have streamlined access to resources with approval workflows built in. And there are established rules for verifying, establishing, and enforcing policy and budget compliance.

Sounds complicated? It isn’t. Here are some reasons why you need cloud governance today.

Reasons for Implementing a Cloud Governance Solution

Helps Curb Shadow IT

Cloud spend and risk increase a great deal when you don’t know what systems are in use and where your data resides. Often, employees turn to shadow IT when they feel stymied whenever they try to access resources to do their jobs. However, 33% of security attacks will be on shadow IT resources by 2020.

With cloud governance, you set up the required framework for team members to access cloud resources within budgetary and compliance constraints. This helps to reduce employee frustration and the possibility of team members using their cloud accounts to do their jobs. Organizations can also setup approval workflows in place to put a curb on it.

Cloud Resource Management Becomes Easier

Cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), are at the forefront of the drive to encourage customers to move their multiple tenant workloads. These workloads often reside in a single cloud account and should have their own distinct account. The use of multiple accounts to manage distinct workloads is best-practiced if you want to:

Putting in place a robust cloud governance strategy can help your organization to manage the volume of accounts it needs. It will also give IT visibility into key cloud trends and activities.

Reduction of Risk

There are risks associated with operating in the cloud. They include noncompliance with regulations and policies, exposed data, and cost overruns. When you put a solution for cloud governance in place, your organization can:

Reduction of Labor

Having your team use spreadsheets and other manual processes to keep track of costs, compliance, and accounts can be labor-intensive. With a cloud governance solution, you can set guardrails to control budget, access, and policy for each project. Also, you get enforcement actions, so you don’t have to do unnecessary follow-up actions after receiving an alert.

Experience the leading hybrid cloud management and orchestration solution. Request a CloudBolt demo today.

Cloud monitoring tools have helped make the multi-cloud a more appealing prospect for many organizations. Consequently, organizations are leveraging public cloud providers, such as Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services. While many IT admins view security as the reason to keep the operations in-house, performance monitoring is another compelling reason.

Often, organizations struggle to gain visibility into their cloud operations because of variety of reporting tools they need to learn from scratch. But cloud performance monitoring tools can help organizations to overcome the challenges of the public cloud.

Cloud monitoring involves a complex web of interactions that many times are difficult to gauge. In most data centers, many products, such as network routers, operating systems, storage systems, and servers, collect performance information. This information tells IT staff how elements, such as the servers, are functioning. But the goal is to determine how well end-to-end connections function.

Understanding Public Cloud Performance Monitoring Challenges

So why are these monitoring tools for the cloud even necessary? Let’s go over some of the challenges many organizations face in the cloud.

Multiple Cloud Providers

Many businesses choose the multi-cloud approach because of its flexibility and scalability. But here’s the thing — the biggest draw toward a move to the cloud is also one of its most significant shortcomings. Keeping tabs on multiple cloud providers is often challenging. So, the multi-cloud has essentially introduced new challenges for IT admins. And with increasing complexity, monitoring events in diverse cloud environments becomes an almost impossible task.

Hybrid Infrastructure

Gartner had predicted that cloud spend would match the spend on hosting and infrastructure by the end of 2020. And it makes sense. After all, enterprises want the flexibility and agility afforded by the cloud without the trouble and expense of setting up on-premises data centers. Hybrid infrastructure is a combination of private clouds, public clouds, and on-premises data centers.

In hybrid infrastructure, a business deploys systems and applications in any one environment depending on its needs. Most organizations using the hybrid cloud want to monitor all these deployments from the same platform. This is one of the challenges of modern cloud monitoring tools.

Skills Gap

Today, more than 40 percent of IT enterprises consider themselves multi-cloud users. This is according to a survey by Kentik. Each enterprise has two or more cloud service providers and at least one traditional on-premises deployment.

Interestingly, the closing of the skills gap has not met the growth in cloud adoption. As firms hunt for more specialized skills in cloud monitoring for the hybrid and multi-cloud, it’s becoming harder to find the right skills.

These are some of the primary reasons why you need cloud monitoring tools. However, what kind of benefits can they provide? Let’s take a look.

The Benefits of Cloud Monitoring Tools

There are innumerable benefits monitoring tools provide to businesses. Some of them include:

Conclusion

The importance of monitoring your apps and servers in the cloud is clear. But you cannot let monitoring take precedence over your business operations. This is why you need a good cloud monitoring tool that does all the heavy lifting.

Experience the leading hybrid cloud management and orchestration solution. Request a CloudBolt demo today.