Cloud Computing Does Not Mean the End of Waste

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Jason Hannula.

Even if a business and its leadership embrace cloud computing, and its IT resources no longer spend all of their time maintaining operational systems and fielding business-user password reset requests, it does not mean that IT’s duties in a cloud services relationship have ended. According to Barb Darrow’s article on Gigaom, treating cloud services as an option that can be purchased and promptly forgotten about creates the potential for the next generation of wasteful shelfware.

Instead of a storeroom of unused, shrink-wrapped license software, cloud resources are prone to over-provisioning, wasteful idle capacity or orphaned resources from past projects. Without active usage monitoring, resource rationalization and cleanup of idle instances, long-term savings or cost reductions are at risk…

Transformation, Not Elimination

Active monitoring, whether for optimal cloud resource utilization with public cloud providers or internally on private clouds, is just one of the new roles for IT professionals. Even the best vendor relationships require regular monitoring and audits to ensure the services provided remain appropriate for the business needs and aligned with the larger IT strategy. Wasteful over-acquisition of resources is not only the result of aggressive vendor sales tactics, but it can be the result of internal resource hoarding in a business culture or resource silo, or a perception of resource scarcity. The cloud does not eliminate the need for IT professionals as a vital part of the business — it simply transforms the role that IT resources perform within the business…

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