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Tag: Cloud Computing

  • Key Cost Optimization Strategies for Multi-Cloud Environments

    Key Cost Optimization Strategies for Multi-Cloud Environments

    In today’s ever-changing technology landscape, businesses are realizing the advantages of multi-cloud environments. These environments allow organizations to tap into various cloud platforms and use their services as required. This change signifies a shift away from relying on just one cloud provider. Businesses now embrace the flexibility and adaptability that come with using multiple clouds simultaneously.

    In complex multi-cloud environments, it is crucial to manage costs effectively. It is important to strategically optimize costs while considering your organization’s specific needs. By utilizing tools, implementing processes and continuously monitoring costs, you can save money while still reaping the benefits offered by different cloud providers.

    What is Multi-Cloud?

    A multi-cloud environment describes a setup in which companies or individuals utilize cloud computing platforms or providers to fulfill their computing requirements. In a multi-cloud setup, organizations have the ability to integrate both public clouds (such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform) and private clouds (on-premises or hosted private clouds) to establish a diverse and adaptable computing infrastructure. Rather than relying on one cloud provider, multi-cloud strategies distribute workloads across several cloud environments. Rather than depending on a single cloud provider, a multi-cloud strategy involves distributing workloads across various cloud environments.

    Benefits and Challenges

    Multi-cloud environments offer organizations numerous benefits, including flexibility, reliability, scalability and cost optimization. When organizations distribute their workloads across various cloud platforms, they reduce the chances of downtime or service disruptions due to a single provider failure. This guarantees uninterrupted availability and minimizes any potential impact on business operations.

    It is quite challenging to manage a multi-cloud environment for several reasons. Organizations must tackle challenges related to governance, cost management, integration and compatibility. To overcome these obstacles effectively, it is important to implement a well-defined strategy with efficient management tools.

    Since each cloud provider comes with its own set of tools, APIs and policies, ensuring consistent governance across different cloud platforms is challenging. Since different cloud providers have differing pricing structures, it is quite difficult to monitor and optimize costs in a multi-cloud environment.

    Analyzing and understanding each provider’s cost model is necessary when tracking usage patterns across different platforms. Integrating services from different cloud providers into a cohesive system architecture can be challenging due to compatibility issues. Careful planning and expertise are needed to achieve seamless integration without conflicts or performance problems.

    The Importance of Cost Optimization in Multi-Cloud Environments

    In today’s evolving technology landscape, businesses need to make the most of various cloud environments to fully utilize their cloud capabilities. However, great power entails great responsibility and cost optimization is a critical aspect that should not be overlooked.

    As businesses expand their cloud presence across multiple providers, optimizing costs becomes necessary to maximize ROI and stay competitive in today’s fast-paced market. In a multi-cloud environment, organizations typically use several cloud platforms simultaneously, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), to reduce expenses and maximize efficiency by comparing the services, features, and pricing models offered by each of the providers.

    Multi-cloud environments offer opportunities for cost optimization by allowing organizations to choose the cost solutions tailored to their specific needs. With access to pricing models and options offered by providers businesses can optimize their expenditure based on workload requirements.

    Optimizing Costs in Multi-Cloud Environments

    To optimize costs in multi-cloud setups, one must carefully analyze and manage expense factors across providers and services. It involves understanding cost structures, pricing models and usage patterns while considering workload requirements to choose cost-effective options for different tasks. Achieving these financial benefits requires efficient resource allocation and minimizing unnecessary expenses.

    This section discusses the key strategies for optimizing costs in a multi-cloud environment.

    Automating Resource Management

    You can optimize costs in a multi-cloud environment by automating the management of resources. Efficiently optimizing costs in cloud environments relies heavily on automating resource management. This enables organizations to monitor usage levels and resources dynamically as required, effectively implement cost-saving policies and ensure optimal utilization of cloud services without the need for human intervention.

    ​Organizations can automate their processes and tasks to streamline their operations, thereby saving time and reducing the risk of overspending on unnecessary resources. To effectively handle resources, it is crucial to have monitoring tools that offer real-time observations on usage patterns and performance metrics. These tools enable businesses to identify underutilized resources, which can then be automatically shut down or adjusted in size as required.

    Automation also involves implementing automatic resource allocation capabilities based on demand fluctuations. By scaling up or down depending on workload requirements, organizations can optimize costs by ensuring they only pay for the resources they truly need at any given time.  By implementing these automated policies, organizations are able to enforce cost optimization practices. For example, by establishing guidelines for assigning metadata tags to resources, organizations gain visibility and control over expenditure across various cloud platforms.

    Additionally, scheduling non-production environments to automatically shut down during off-business hours can significantly reduce costs. By turning off development and testing environments when they’re not in use, companies can avoid paying for resources during periods of low activity.

    Analyzing Costs in Multi-Cloud Environments

    While analyzing costs in a multi-cloud environment is challenging, it is a crucial strategy for your organization to make the most of its resources and avoid unnecessary expenses. It’s important to understand usage patterns and expenditures to optimize costs effectively. Start by gaining visibility into spending across all clouds. Use cost management tools provided by the cloud platforms or consider third-party solutions that consolidate data. This helps track costs at a detailed level and identify areas of high expenses. Analyze usage patterns to find instances that can be resized or turned off when not needed. By adjusting resources based on demand, overprovisioning can be avoided and unnecessary costs reduced.

    Here are the key steps to analyze costs in a multi-cloud environment:

    • Identify and categorize workloads
    • Track usage patterns and cost
    • Analyze the usage patterns of your workloads
    • Automate cost optimization
    • Incorporate cost analysis into your decision-making process
    • Review cost optimization strategy regularly

    Use Spot Instances

    In multi-cloud environments, using spot instances is crucial for cost optimization. These instances are available from cloud providers at a much lower price than on-demand or reserved instances, leading to substantial cost savings for organizations. With spot instances, you can take advantage of unused or idle capacity on cloud providers’ infrastructure, resulting in substantial cost savings. Being strategic with spot instances provides economical access to compute resources. Cloud providers offer discounted spare resources in the absence of regular customer demand, making it favorable compared to on-demand or reserved instances. Use on-demand or reserved instances for critical tasks while employing spot instances for less critical workloads. To optimize costs, you should leverage on-demand, spot and reserved instances, i.e., a mix of all of them.

    Right-Sizing and Efficient Resource Allocation

    Rightsizing is a key strategy for cost optimization that reduces costs and enhances performance in multi-cloud environments, leading to substantial savings. One of the most important steps in this regard is capturing comprehensive data on resource utilization (CPU, memory, storage and network utilization). By identifying over-provisioned or underutilized instances, organizations can optimize resource allocation. Automated tools simplify this process by monitoring and recommending adjustments. Consolidating workloads into fewer instances and leveraging virtualization technologies or containerization platforms further improves performance and scalability.  Right-sizing and resource allocation are two key techniques that can help optimize costs in a multi-cloud setup.

    Here are the key strategies at a glance:

    • Analyzing workload requirements
    • Selecting the appropriate instance types
    • Regularly review and adjust resource allocations based on actual usage patterns
    • Implementing auto-scaling and load-balancing mechanisms
    • Utilizing resource tagging and monitoring tools for cost visibility
    • Right-sizing resources on demand
    • Automated scaling strategies

    Conclusion

    By implementing key strategies such as using reserved instances or savings plans, automating resource management, implementing rightsizing techniques, leveraging spot instances, optimizing data transfer and storage, applying automation and orchestration principles, practicing financial governance and budget management and keeping an eye on future optimizations, businesses can effectively control their cloud spending and ensure they are making the most of their multi-cloud investments while minimizing costs.

    However, it’s important to acknowledge that cost optimization in cloud environments comes with its own set of challenges. Managing costs can be quite challenging for cloud environments despite their flexibility and scalability. From dealing with pricing models to facing a lack of visibility across clouds, there are obstacles that need to be overcome.

    With careful planning and implementation combined with ongoing monitoring and review processes, organizations can mitigate the challenges and truly harness the power of multi-cloud. Your organization should adhere to the key strategies outlined in this article to take advantage of the benefits of multi-cloud while ensuring optimal costs in their cloud spending.

  • What the Future Holds for FinOps and DevOps

    What the Future Holds for FinOps and DevOps

    FinOps, or financial operations, is a cultural practice that brings financial accountability to the variable spend model of the cloud. It’s a strategic approach combining systems, best practices and culture to increase an organization’s ability to understand cloud costs and make informed decisions.

    In essence, FinOps is a framework for managing cloud operating expenses (OpEx). It’s about bringing together technology, business and finance professionals to ensure that companies can get the most out of their cloud investments. The goal is to provide businesses with a better understanding of their cloud usage and costs, enabling them to make strategic decisions about resource allocation and cost management.

    FinOps bridges the gap between finance and operations. It’s not just about monitoring costs; it’s about understanding why those costs occur, how they relate to business value and what can be done to optimize them. It’s a comprehensive, cross-functional and continuous approach to managing cloud expenses, ensuring that businesses can maximize their return on investment (ROI) in the cloud.

    What Does FinOps Mean for DevOps Teams?

    Traditionally, DevOps has been focused on improving the speed, efficiency and quality of software delivery. But with the advent of cloud computing, cost has become a crucial factor. The dynamic nature of the cloud, with its pay-as-you-go model, means that costs can quickly spiral out of control if not properly managed. This is where FinOps comes in.

    Budget Responsibility

    As a DevOps team member, you’re likely used to thinking in terms of speed, performance, and quality. With FinOps, you need to add cost to that equation. You’re not just responsible for delivering high-quality software quickly; you’re also accountable for the cost of that delivery. This requires a shift in mindset, moving from a project-based budgeting approach to a product-based one.

    In a project-based approach, you have a fixed budget for a specific project. Once the project is finished, so is the budget. In a product-based approach, on the other hand, you’re responsible for the ongoing costs of a product throughout its life cycle. This means you need to consider not just the cost of development, but also the cost of maintenance, support, and continuous improvement.

    Resource Optimization

    In the context of FinOps, resource optimization is all about making sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck. You want to ensure that you’re using your cloud resources as efficiently as possible, minimizing waste and maximizing value.

    Resource optimization can involve a variety of strategies, from rightsizing instances to eliminating idle resources. But it’s not just about cutting costs; it’s also about aligning costs with value. You need to understand the value that each resource brings to your organization and allocate costs accordingly. This requires a deep understanding of your cloud usage and a commitment to continuous monitoring and improvement.

    Collaboration With Finance

    One of the key aspects of FinOps is the collaboration between DevOps and finance. You’re no longer working in silos; you’re part of a cross-functional team working towards a common goal. This requires open communication, mutual understanding, and shared responsibility.

    As a DevOps team member, you need to understand the financial implications of your decisions. You need to be able to articulate the value of your work in financial terms, demonstrating how your efforts contribute to the organization’s bottom line. At the same time, you need to be open to feedback and guidance from your finance colleagues, learning from their expertise and incorporating their insights into your decision-making process.

    Performance Metrics

    Performance metrics are crucial in the world of FinOps. They provide the data you need to understand your cloud usage, monitor your costs and make informed decisions. But these aren’t just any metrics; they’re metrics that align with your business goals and reflect the value of your cloud investments.

    These metrics might include cost per workload, cost per user or cost per unit of output. The key is to choose metrics that make sense for your organization, providing meaningful insights that can guide your resource allocation and cost management efforts. And remember, these metrics need to be regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes in your cloud usage and business needs.

    Automation of Cost Controls

    Automation is a key tool in the FinOps toolkit. It can help you streamline your cost management processes, reduce manual effort and increase accuracy. From automated alerts to automated remediation, there are many ways automation can improve your FinOps efforts.

    With automated alerts, you can be notified when your cloud costs exceed a certain threshold. This allows you to respond quickly, addressing issues before they become major problems. With automated remediation, you can take this a step further, automatically adjusting your cloud resources in response to changes in demand or performance.

    Future FinOps Trends

    The year 2024 promises to be an important one for FinOps, with several trends poised to redefine the landscape:

    1. AI Algorithms for Cost Analysis and Prediction

    The use of AI algorithms for real-time cost analysis and predictions is predicted to be a major trend in 2024. AI enables the automation of complex financial calculations and projections, allowing for more accurate and timely decision-making. AI is already not just analyzing and predicting costs but also providing actionable insights to optimize these costs.

    The power of AI in FinOps lies in its ability to process massive amounts of data quickly and accurately. It can analyze past and current financial data, identify patterns, and predict future trends. This means that instead of reacting to financial changes after they happen, you can be proactive and make strategic decisions based on accurate predictions.

    The use of AI in FinOps will also enhance risk management. By predicting potential financial risks, AI can help organizations take preventive measures and mitigate the impact of these risks. The integration of AI in FinOps is a trend you cannot afford to ignore if you aim for financial operations excellence.

    2. Empowering Teams to Manage Their Own Cloud Costs

    Traditionally, financial operations and cost management have been centralized functions. However, the advent of cloud computing and the shift toward decentralized work models have resulted in a new trend—empowering individual teams to manage their own cloud costs. In 2024, we can expect this trend to gain further momentum.

    In a cloud environment, costs are often directly linked to usage. This means that the teams using the cloud resources are in the best position to control these costs. By empowering these teams to manage their own cloud costs, organizations can promote accountability, encourage resource optimization, and ultimately achieve cost efficiency.

    This approach requires a shift in mindset and the development of new skills. Teams need to understand the financial implications of their actions and make cost-effective decisions. They also need tools and processes to monitor their cloud usage and manage their costs effectively.

    3. Managing Costs Across Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud Deployments

    The use of multiple cloud providers and the coexistence of cloud and on-premises data centers have added a new layer of complexity to financial operations. Managing costs across these diverse environments is a major challenge, and it’s another trend that is expected to shape FinOps in 2024.

    With multiple cloud providers, each with its own pricing model and billing system, cost management can be a daunting task. Add to this the costs of maintaining on-premises data centers, and the complexity multiplies. In 2024, organizations will need to adopt strategies and tools that enable them to manage these costs effectively.

    One of these strategies is the use of cost management platforms that provide a unified view of costs across multiple environments. These platforms can track and analyze costs, allocate them to the appropriate departments or projects, and provide insights for cost optimization. They can also automate cost reporting and forecasting, easing the workload of financial teams.

    4. Emphasizing the Security Aspects of FinOps

    As financial operations become more complex, the risk of abnormal spending patterns or unauthorized activities increases. Identifying and addressing these issues promptly is critical to prevent financial losses and maintain financial integrity. In 2024, the identification of abnormal spending patterns or unauthorized activities will be a key focus area in FinOps.

    Tools and technologies that enable real-time monitoring and anomaly detection will play a crucial role in this regard. These tools can analyze financial data, detect deviations from normal patterns, and alert you to potential issues. They can also help you trace these anomalies back to their source, facilitating investigation and resolution.

    Moreover, organizations will need to strengthen their internal controls and governance mechanisms. They will need to define clear responsibilities and accountabilities, establish robust approval processes and enforce strict access controls. Regular audits and reviews will also be essential to ensure compliance and detect any irregularities.

    5. Measuring and Optimizing for Environmental Impact

    The environmental impact of financial operations is a concern that cannot be overlooked. As organizations strive to be more sustainable, measuring and optimizing for environmental impact is becoming a key aspect of FinOps. This trend is expected to gain prominence in 2024.

    The environmental impact of financial operations is largely tied to energy consumption. In a cloud environment, for instance, the energy consumed by data centers contributes to carbon emissions. Therefore, optimizing cloud usage not only reduces costs but also reduces environmental impact.

    To measure and optimize for environmental impact, organizations will need to track their energy consumption, calculate their carbon footprint, and implement strategies to reduce it. These strategies can include using energy-efficient technologies, optimizing resource usage and sourcing renewable energy.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, FinOps is a dynamic and evolving field. The trends and predictions outlined above provide a roadmap for achieving financial operations excellence in 2024. By harnessing the power of AI, empowering teams to manage their own cloud costs, managing costs across diverse environments, emphasizing security in FinOps and optimizing for environmental impact, you can take your FinOps program to the next level.

  • Broadcom Survey Surfaces Drive to Consolidate Automation Platforms

    Broadcom Survey Surfaces Drive to Consolidate Automation Platforms

    Broadcom this week published a global survey of 535 IT leaders that found more than three-quarters (78%) are moving to consolidate cloud automation tools and platforms. However, thus far, only 8% of respondents said they had completed that effort.

    Overall, the survey also found more than 81% already have multiple cloud automation solutions in place, and 70% noted this issue had created significant challenges, including increasing time to automate (59%), time to report (52%) and time to remediation (52%) and higher costs (49%). In addition, 46% noted it’s more difficult to troubleshoot IT environments, while 41% noted multiple tools increase compliance risks.

    IT teams also find that having multiple automation tools slows down software delivery (37%) and contributes to the over-provisioning of IT environments (32%).

    Aline Gerew, head of automation for the Agile Operations Division at Broadcom, said the multiple islands of automation that have evolved on various cloud computing platforms now need to be centralized to reduce the current level of friction in the cloud. Those efforts need to start with platforms capable of unifying observability across all the platforms employed, she added.

    The amount of consolidation that any IT organization can implement depends on the amount of political capital they have. In many cases, the applications and associated automation tools running in any given environment have been adopted by a department or business unit that exercises a lot of autonomy regarding IT. The issue that creates is multiple tools and platforms increase the total cost of IT. At a time when many organizations are experiencing economic headwinds, the need to reduce the total cost of IT naturally becomes a more pressing concern.

    Rather than consolidate automation tools and platforms, the simpler option is to deploy an automation framework that is designed to be integrated with the various tools and platforms that are already in place, noted Gerew. That approach enables automation to be applied at much higher levels of scale to reduce costs without forcing every arm of an organization to standardize on the same tools and platform, she noted.

    The survey found that, when it comes to cloud automation, the most important consideration factors are operational costs (62%), performance (53%) and operational efficiency (49%).

    Responsibility for cloud automation will naturally vary from one organization to the next, but the survey noted that 67% of respondents currently have a cloud architect on staff and another 33% are planning to hire one.

    That role is increasingly required as organizations find themselves managing a wide range of cloud computing environments, including software-as-a-service applications (57%), legacy applications that have been lifted into the cloud (56%), new cloud-native applications (46%) and legacy applications that have been refactored for the cloud (41%).

    It’s apparent that cloud computing environments are becoming more complex with each passing day. There may come a day when artificial intelligence (AI) helps reduce the level of complexity; in the meantime, IT organizations need to find ways to streamline the management of cloud computing environments. Today, those environments are made up of applications based on a wide range of increasingly divergent architectures as the rate of application deployments exceeds the retirement of legacy apps.

  • From DevOps to the Future: The Evolutionary Leap to Platform Engineering

    From DevOps to the Future: The Evolutionary Leap to Platform Engineering

    The paradigm of technology development never ceases to amaze. Over the past few decades, we’ve witnessed an unbroken chain of progress from traditional IT to Agile methodologies, from cloud computing to microservices and now, another leap is on the horizon. Enter the age of the platform engineer, a role that is swiftly emerging as a logical evolution of DevOps culture.

    From the Roots: Understanding DevOps

    DevOps revolutionized the way teams design, build and deliver software. With its advent, we saw the amalgamation of developers and operators into a single team, fostering a culture of collaboration and integration. The core idea was to tear down the traditional silos and ensure seamless interaction between different stakeholders in the development process.

    This unique approach has proven its mettle over time, bringing about shorter development cycles, higher deployment frequency, more dependable releases and quicker resolution of issues. DevOps set the stage for continuous delivery, integration and monitoring, thus speeding up the digital transformation of many organizations.

    The Evolution: Birth of the Platform Engineer

    As we delve further into the era of cloud-native technologies, containers and service meshes, the demands on the DevOps methodology have evolved. To cater to the increasing complexity and scale of modern infrastructures, we witness the emergence of a new breed of professionals, aptly titled platform engineers.

    This role is not just a renaming of the traditional DevOps engineer; it is an evolution. Platform engineers build upon the foundational practices of DevOps but go beyond by embracing a holistic view of the technology stack. They focus on creating platforms that provide a unified, consistent, and efficient environment for development and operations teams to work within.

    Platform Engineering: The Core Components

    Platform engineers possess a skillset that spans software development, infrastructure management, system operations, and, importantly, a deep understanding of the business context. They are entrusted with the design, construction and management of the underlying platforms supporting the deployment and scaling of applications.

    A significant part of the platform engineer’s role involves creating self-service infrastructures that empower teams to deliver software independently and efficiently. This can involve building and managing internal toolchains, maintaining cloud-native infrastructures, designing service observability systems and ensuring high levels of automation across the board. 

    The Future is Here: Embracing Platform Engineering

    The rise of the platform engineer signifies a shift towards more scalability, resilience and efficiency in managing modern tech ecosystems. It’s about leveraging technology to its fullest extent and creating a platform that is more than the sum of its parts. 

    As the technology landscape continues to evolve, the transition from DevOps to platform engineering may soon become the norm. It’s an exciting prospect, promising a future where innovative platforms can seamlessly integrate and orchestrate the complexities of the modern digital world. After all, in this era of rapid digital transformation, those who adapt will thrive. 

    In conclusion, the platform engineer role is not replacing DevOps but evolving from it, extending the principles that made DevOps so successful to meet the challenges and opportunities of the new tech era. As we continue this exciting journey into the future of software development and delivery, there’s no doubt that platform engineering will play an increasingly important role. 

  • Cisco Aligns With Nutanix on Hybrid Cloud Computing

    Cisco Aligns With Nutanix on Hybrid Cloud Computing

    Cisco and Nutanix this week announced a strategic partnership through which the two companies will collaborate to advance hybrid cloud computing.

    As part of that agreement, Cisco is committing to making AHV virtual machine software from Nutanix available from the edge to the cloud, starting with the Cisco Unified Compute Systems (UCS) rack and, soon after, blade servers.

    Jeremy Foster, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Compute, said via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, Cisco will be able to centrally manage virtual machines from Nutanix alongside the other major virtual machines it already supports.

    In addition, the partnership will enable Cisco to apply multiple forms of artificial intelligence (AI) across a hybrid cloud computing environment, he added.

    Thomas Cornely, senior vice president of product management for Nutanix, said the goal is to provide IT teams with an opportunity to consolidate infrastructure across a hybrid cloud computing environment. In effect, Nutanix and Cisco are working toward converging the control planes across their entire respective portfolios, he added.

    The goal is to enable IT teams to streamline the number of platforms that need to be supported as part of an effort to reduce the total cost of IT, said Cornely.

    The issue that IT organizations regularly encounter is that each platform requires hiring additional IT personnel to manage. At a time when many organizations are encountering economic headwinds, there is a natural inclination to reduce the number of platforms as the size of the IT staff is reduced. Despite advances in automation, IT labor costs still represent the largest overall segment of any IT budget.

    It’s not clear how aggressively IT teams are consolidating IT infrastructure to reduce costs, but after more than a decade of continuous investments in IT, many organizations are discovering they are supporting a wide range of platforms. During a downturn, however, IT teams tend to more aggressively eliminate “snowflake” platforms that require unique skillsets to manage, noted Cornely.

    In the meantime, IT environments are also becoming more distributed as more workloads move to the network edge. Those workloads are not replacing applications running in on-premises or cloud computing environments, so the overall IT footprint will continue to increase. Given the chronic shortage of IT skills, the only way to effectively manage that IT estate will be to rely more on automation frameworks increasingly infused with AI.

    Each IT organization will need to determine for itself what level of automation to embrace, but Cisco is betting most will opt to rely on a SaaS platform provided by a vendor versus building and maintaining an IT management platform themselves. Regardless, legacy approaches that depend heavily on manual processes will increasingly give way to cloud-based platforms that can more easily manage workloads wherever they happen to be deployed.

    The issue now, as always, is funding the transition to new platforms to bring the total cost of IT back under control and eventually pay for themselves.

  • VMware Looks to Streamline Multi-Cloud Computing Management

    VMware Looks to Streamline Multi-Cloud Computing Management

    VMware today integrated its console for managing cloud instances with its VMware Cloud Foundation to streamline the deployment of its software in on-premises IT environments.

    Announced at the VMware Explore 2023 conference, the latest edition of VMware Cloud will make it simpler to manage multi-cloud computing environments by combining VMware Cloud Foundation Software and VMware Cloud Services into a single platform.

    VMware also announced early access to an ESXi life cycle management cloud service for VMware vSphere+ that enables IT teams to centrally manage upgrades across a distributed vCenter environment. Additional updates to vSphere in the upcoming release include doubling GPU capacity per virtual machine.

    Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager for cloud infrastructure at VMware, said the goal is to improve the overall pace of innovation;  in addition to deploying workloads in on-premises IT environments, organizations are also deploying workloads on multiple cloud computing services.

    VMware Cloud is being made available in five editions that can either be managed by an internal IT team, an external services provider or by VMware. In addition, a VMware Ransomware Recovery service based on VMware Cloud is also generally available. Following a breach of an on-premises IT environment, VMware Ransomware Recovery will enable organizations to run production workloads in the cloud until forensics are completed. The company also unveiled a technology preview of cybersecure storage that will integrate recovery workflows with native vSAN snapshots and add support for Google Cloud VMware Engine.

    In addition, VMware is adding a managed NSX service delivered via the cloud, dubbed NSX+, that manages instances of the virtual networking software that runs on top of its virtual machine software. There is also now an NSX+ virtual private clouds (VPCs) option that isolates instances of the virtual networking platform.

    Finally, VMware is adding a VMware Cloud with VMware vSAN Max, which will make 8.6 petabytes of disaggregated capacity and 3.6 million IOPS per cluster available on demand later this year.

    VMware appears to be streamlining the number of platforms IT teams need to acquire to support and manage IT infrastructure at a time when more organizations are trying to navigate increasing economic headwinds.

    One way or another, IT teams will need to reduce the cost of IT at a time when IT environments are becoming more complex. VMware is betting that, given its dominance in on-premises IT environments, there will be a natural inclination to deploy more of its software in the cloud to create a more homogenous IT environment that is less complex.

    However, it’s not clear whether organizations are willing to pay extra for the privilege. Many organizations are now supporting multiple classes of virtual machines and associated software despite the fact that each additional platform raises the total cost of IT.

    In the meantime, many IT organizations are also awaiting the outcome of Broadcom’s effort to acquire VMware before deciding how to centralize the management of multi-cloud computing environments.