A More Structured Cloud Is a More Cost-Effective Cloud

Third-Party Management Can Untangle Cloud Environments

The more complicated the cloud environment, the more complicated cloud optimization is going to be. And in higher education, where hybrid and multicloud solutions are often the result of decentralized purchasing and implementation, cloud environments are frequently extremely complex.

Making sense of those complex environments is the first step toward achieving financial savings, and a proven pathway to reach those savings is by leaning into a FinOps culture on your campus. FinOps is a way to save money, improve efficiency and inspire collaboration between disparate academic divisions, research operations, administrative offices and IT.

A managed FinOps program brings experienced third parties, such as our team at CDW, to light a path to cloud understanding. Once a cloud assessment is completed and IT has a clearer picture, it’s time to create a centralized set of rules for cloud purchasing and cloud reporting. This gives IT all of the info it needs on cloud allocation. From there, IT can claw back space from underused cloud service providers (CSPs) or send some portion of heavy cloud workloads to those open spaces. It can also mean engaging with more hybrid solutions, blending on-premises data centers with public cloud resources to find a balance that makes financial, operational and practical sense.

A general assessment of cloud spending can lead to the creation of a healthy, cost-optimized cloud framework, and a longer-term engagement with a third-party can ensure this assessment is happening on a regular basis. By updating and maintaining the architecture of a university’s complex cloud environment in perpetuity, institutions protect themselves against slipping into the same bad cloud habits that had them overspending in the first place.

Showback Charges Can Illuminate Cloud Overspending

One way central IT can help the rest of campus understand its cloud spending is through showback charges. The practice involves the central office sending what look like invoices to the disparate departments on their campus, “charging” them for their cloud usage. The invoices don’t need to be paid to IT, but they create an element of accountability on campus and are often appreciated by overspenders who are simply unaware of what kind of mess they’re creating.

That visibility into a person’s or department’s cloud spending — both in terms of money spent and storage space consumed — is another key piece of a FinOps culture that can help top-level administrators grasp how cloud spending works. If this sounds like shaming certain departments into reining in their cloud usage, that’s exactly what it is. Shame is a powerful motivator.

Showbacks can also help IT understand why cloud resources are being allocated in a certain way in a particular department. IT workers know that non-IT staff frequently don’t understand the work IT is doing, but the same is often also true in reverse. If showbacks for a certain office or CSP indicate an anomaly, IT now has an opportunity to engage with that office and better understand their cloud needs before recommending any action.

This understanding opens the door to hybrid solutions, changes in on-premises or cloud spending, the inclusion or reduction of certain CSPs, and an overall clearer picture of a university’s cloud entanglements. From there, a new structure can emerge, and cloud optimization can truly begin.

This article is part of EdTech: Focus on Higher Education’s UniversITy blog series featuring analysis and recommendations from CDW experts.