Cloud management tools can help businesses better address the challenges of operating in the cloud; but, if the tools fail to keep up with the speed at which the cloud is evolving, they can also prevent businesses from taking full advantage of the benefits of cloud computing.
Cloud management tools simplify the management of cloud environments and help businesses better deal with the challenges of cloud computing. Depending on their capabilities, the tools can purchase, monitor, track, and optimize cloud resources across multiple cloud environments so IT personnel have more time available to focus on the business’s strategic goals.
In addition to managing cloud resources, cloud management tools can control how users interact with the cloud via policy-driven automation. This capability makes it easier to enforce cloud governance policies and prevent unauthorized access to resources. However, in order to continue helping businesses address the challenges of operating in the cloud, cloud management tools have to keep up with the speed at which the cloud is evolving.
How fast is the cloud evolving?
In November Microsoft hosted its annual Ignite conference in Orlando. During the five days of sessions, hands-on experiences, and keynote speeches there were more than 170 announcements made relating to new products or enhancements to existing products. Although not all of them are related to Azure, there are significant changes in the pipeline to the ways in which Azure will interact with other clouds.
Four weeks later, and it was AWS’ turn to dazzle the cloud industry at its re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. A further 77 announcements were made relating to product launches and additional features and services—pretty much all of them relevant to the AWS Cloud (you can read recaps of re:Invent here and here). By the time cloud management tools catch up with all the new products, it will be Google’s turn to move the goalposts at the Google Cloud Next conference in April.
Vendors also have to keep up with customers’ feedback
Vendors of cloud management tools not only have to keep up with the speed at which the cloud is evolving, they also have to keep up with customers’ feedback. We can’t speak for what other vendors are doing, but at CloudHealth we announced more than 150 product updates in 2018 prompted by customer feedback—including the very popular Convertible RI Exchanger.
Earlier this year, CloudHealth’s CTO, Joe Kinsella, unveiled the company’s vision for the future of cloud management and announced a suite of new products that will allow customers to drive optimization and governance in their public cloud environments without hampering innovation and agility. Many of these products are already live on the CloudHealth platform.
We haven’t yet finished our product updates for 2019, but when AWS announced the launch of AWS Savings Plans in early November, we were right on the case. We have already integrated visibility into AWS Savings Plans into CloudHealth while further enhancements are in the development and planning stages. You can read our eBook to learn more about AWS Savings Plans here.
