Name: Wrangling Cloud Costs & Optimizing Spend in 2023
Start: 2023-04-26T16:00:00Z
End: 2023-04-26T16:00:49.000Z
Location: BrightTALK
Rating: 5

The rapid adoption of cloud computing has far-reaching effects across the enterprise in terms of application development, IT architecture and platforms, systems and network operations, security needs, and cross-team dynamics. This monthly discussion covers all the factors organizations needs to consider and explores ways that cloud technologies can help them stay ahead of the competition.

What do we mean when we say “data fabric?” Data fabric is an architecture that can bridge cloud and edge environments, which is increasingly useful as companies operate hybrid infrastructures. Enterprises are looking for a way to effectively facilitate the consumption of data upstream via cloud providers, as well as the processing of data downstream via edge nodes. There needs to be a cohesive way to manage these separate yet related needs, in their specific environments.

Add in AI and ML to the equation and we’re seeing techniques being used to infer relationships, break down data silos and create organization wide data catalogs. One such method is the embracing of Data Fabric. Data Fabric has become a platform that can be used to govern, secure, share and curate data across organizations. But is it right for you?

Join Jo Peterson and her expert panel in this latest episode of Cloud Cover, which will explore how data fabric can – and should – be used, especially as a bridge between cloud and edge.

The Data Fabric Bridge

As of August 2024, nearly 96% of companies use at least one public cloud to run their business, with half of their workload maintained on public clouds. In fact, Gartner reports that 51% of IT spending is shifting to the public cloud.  With such a sizable budget devoted to public cloud, it is clear that there is a growing trend to centralize strategy and spend in this space. But where is this coming from and what is driving this push?

In this session, Jo Peterson and her panel of guests will cover the rise of central cloud teams and the growing creation of Cloud Centers of Excellence or CCOEs. They’ll touch on how FinOps teams are being leveraged to advise, manage or execute cost optimization strategies.  Finally, they’ll dig into who is responsible for cloud cost optimization, the use of unit economic models for cloud cost analysis and the rise in the utilization of MSPs for managing public cloud service.

The Move to a Centralized, Organizational Approach to Public Cloud

While AI can be implemented across many different corporate departments, some of its greatest benefits can be seen in the realm of cybersecurity. IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report draws a clear line between improved cloud security and the use of AI; organizations leveraging extensive security AI, particularly around automation capabilities, showed a marked reduction in breach lifecycle, compared to their counterparts without AI tools. Companies with AI-powered security solutions in place also experienced a breach related cost reduction of 40%, compared to those not adopting AI security measures.

How exactly is AI helping to strengthen these organizations’ security protocols? Where is it most effective to implement an AI-powered solution and does this compromise existing security features? For any organization looking to take advantage of the newest AI innovations, cybersecurity is a ripe field to explore – but also one with high stakes. Inaccurate security implementation won’t just drain resources, but could create serious vulnerabilities.

In this month’s episode of Cloud Cover, host Jo Peterson and her panel of expert speakers will explore the various AI-enabled tools and practices that are helping to paint a better cloud security picture.

Improving Cloud Security with AI

Reverse Cloud Migration, better known as Cloud Repatriation, has been a hot topic over the last couple years – and it isn’t going anywhere. The data shows that cloud spending has grown six times faster than IT spending since 2010, with many organizations deciding to revisit the question of whether cloud is actually the best option for their operations. While some companies may be spending more due to success and subsequent expansion, others may find themselves leaking resources as they try to contort their needs to fit the cloud’s capabilities. 

What are the 5 top reasons that we’re seeing organizations move data, applications, and workloads away from public cloud environments and back to on-premises or local private cloud infrastructure? While no two companies’ stories will be exactly alike, there are some common drivers that are encouraging this mass cloud repatriation.

This episode of Cloud Cover seeks to understand and explain the motivations behind this reverse cloud migration. Join Jo Peterson and her expert panel of guests as they explore the rationale behind this infrastructure shift.

Cloud Repatriation Drivers

According to Flexera’s 2024 State of the Cloud Report, Platform-as-a-Service took off in 2024 and we’re not seeing any slowing down of this trend in 2025. If you’re not already exploring the value of Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) for your business, this could be the time to change that. But where to begin? PaaS isn’t simply a “one size fits all” and it can be implemented in a range of different ways, as the data shows.

While a variety of PaaS offerings saw a gain in usage, the most prominent numbers are in the data warehouse sector: up to 65% from 56% year over year. Container-as-a-service and serverless support are also both up by nine percentage points this year. Although it is a newer technology, it will not surprise anyone to learn that ML/AI is the PaaS offering getting the most attention from companies experimenting (32%) or planning to use it (17%). 

With so many possible avenues for adoption, how can companies decide if PaaS is right for them? And is this growth trend set to continue? In this episode of Cloud Cover, Jo Peterson and her expert panel will look at these questions – and several more – as they deep dive on the growth of Platform-as-a-Service.

The Growth of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Gen AI adoption is on the rise. Despite being a relatively new technology, generative AI has captured the public and professional imagination and is quickly becoming a widespread phenomenon. Most organizations are already using GenAI for at least one use case, with many looking to expand this function across their business. But are they ready to implement this new technology at scale? The challenge for many enterprises comes down to being prepared from an infrastructure perspective.

Cost, data quality, and integration needs are hurdles, but security remains the top concern for 38% of respondents in a recent survey. Within the field of security, it is data privacy, confidentiality, potential misuse, and unauthorized access that all pose serious challenges. If GenAI is to be introduced at the enterprise level and deployed across multiple verticals, companies must be equipped to answer these security questions. Increasingly, this means finding the right vendor partners to lead them through this journey.

Join Jo Peterson and her panel of expert guests in this first episode of Cloud Cover in 2025. The conversation will explore the spectrum of deployment options, from public to fully private, as well as recent thinking on key criteria for selecting a vendor and a deployment model.

Enterprise Infrastructure for Generative AI

The technology sector never slows down and this has been another busy year for the cloud. While some trends have picked up steam, others have died out and still others have emerged as new contenders for 2025 investment. It can be overwhelming to figure out what topics deserve attention and what innovations may just be flash-in-the-pan moments that are forgotten tomorrow. Yet organizations need to make decisions today that will set them up for future success.

To help guide you through the most important takeaways from 2024, here is our final Cloud Cover episode of the year: “Cloud in Review.” Host Jo Peterson and her expert guests will look back on the year’s developments, ups and downs and determine what are the key lessons to take with you into 2025.

Cloud in Review: A Look Back at 2024

Enterprise organizations are increasingly becoming conscious of their environmental footprint, with data centers and computer processing contributing heavily to carbon emissions. Both consumers and corporations are pushing for smarter ways to do business that don’t harm our natural environment, but the path through isn’t always clear – especially when we’re looking at new technologies. The good news is that there are ways to utilize the cloud in a more eco-friendly and carbon intelligent way. Yet not every business is wise to the value of switching to carbon-intelligent computing, or aware of the options available to organizations.

In this session of Cloud Cover, Jo Peterson and a panel of expert guests will chat about the four key reasons why carbon-intelligent computing is a good thing for businesses; why it’s here to stay; and why you should take advantage of these fantastic enhancements for your business.

Tune in to hear the panel discuss:

— The Green Data Center Will Make the Biggest Impact on Electricity Usage
— Clean Energy Is Often More Cost-Efficient Now
— There’s High Demand for This Type of Computing
— Components Are Becoming Much More Energy-Efficient

Carbon Intelligent Cloud: The Benefits of Making the Green Choice

Data lakes and data warehouses have been popular storage choices for years, often working in tandem to better serve enterprises. Where data lakes store raw data in its original form, data warehouses are used for organized data sets. Yet the constant exchange of data between the two silos has led to increased complexity, as well as a greater risk of duplication and data inconsistency. As workloads become increasingly data-heavy, organizations have been in need of a more comprehensive and cost-effective solution. 

Is that solution the data lakehouse? According to a recent Dremio survey of enterprise IT professionals,  data lakehouses are now the primary architecture for delivering analytics, with 65% running a majority of analytics on lakehouses.  Additionally, 81% are using a data lakehouse to support work on AI models and applications, which is a growing area of investment for many orgs.

Tune into this episode of Cloud Cover to hear host Jo Peterson and her expert guests dig into the real value of the data lakehouse. As we move into the era of AI, we’ll explore whether data lakehouses are critical component to:

— Improving AI-driven data management, governance and compliance.
— Increase the ability to data self-service.
— Build and improve AI models and applications.
— Provide more automation and AI-assisted data management.

Moving to the Lakehouse: Is this the Future of Data Architecture?

No matter your industry, protecting your data and operations is paramount. Cloud security is crucial for every organization to protect their cloud environment, but it can be tricky to fully protect yourself in a constantly evolving threat landscape. For true peace of mind, you need to follow best practices and build these into your security protocol. When you follow the best practices, you will not only harden your organization’s cloud security posture but also prevent any possible attack.

So what are the best practices that you can follow in 2024? During this month’s Cloud Cover conversation, we’ll explore 8 of the best strategic practices to get you thinking about properly securing your cloud environment today. 

Jo Peterson and her expert panel will cover:

— Understanding the Shared Responsibility Model 
— Defining Cloud Security Policies 
— Monitoring Misconfigurations
— Managing User Access 
— Utilizing Cloud Intelligence, Threat Hunting, and Forensics 
— Comprehensive Security Posture Visibility 
— Protecting The Containers 
— Incorporating Continuous Cybersecurity Training

The Strategic 8: How to Navigate the Current State of Cloud Security

The name “Supercloud” was always going to attract attention. Coining the term in 2015, Cornell University defined the Supercloud as a cloud architecture that enables application migration as a service across different availability zones or cloud providers. The Supercloud provides interfaces to allocate, migrate, and terminate resources, such as virtual machines and storage, and presents a homogeneous network to tie these resources together. 

Fast forward to 2024 and what was a buzzword has morphed into a next generation collection of tools, as well as other technologies like edge computing. Together, they are moving us closer to this next stage of cloud computing. But will they take us all the way there? Is the Supercloud truly super, or even an improvement on what came before?

Join us in the latest episode of Cloud Cover as Jo Peterson and her expert guests explore the promise of a unified architecture for managing data and services that can float across multiple cloud providers.

Super-Cloud Me: Digging into the Promise of Next-Gen Cloud

Is Cloud automation the new normal in tech in 2024? When done correctly, automation can be a game changer. In the cloud, an automated programmable infrastructure doesn’t just free up employee hours and resources, but makes it possible to respond to dynamic traffic levels and reconfigure networks as needed in the moment. It’s no surprise that infrastructure as code deployment has shaken things up in the cloud space, but this is only the beginning.

Many organizations are struggling under the vast amounts of data they’re trafficking, while still being expected to deliver the latest technology experiences. Network providers are similarly burdened, especially if they are still working with legacy systems and protocols. Could cloud automation and programmable infrastructure be the solution for both these groups? 

Join Jo Peterson and a panel of experts in this latest episode of Cloud Cover, for a detailed discussion that will cover:
— The benefits of cloud automation,
— The difference between cloud automation and orchestration,
— How automation affects security and compliance,
— How cloud automation impacts the role of IT professionals.

Solving Bloated Workloads: Is Automated Programmable Infrastructure the Answer?

It can be tempting to imagine the cloud as a vast single network that is untethered from any physical location. Yet according to Gartner, one of the trends shaping public cloud is the rise of regional and vertical cloud ecosystems and data services.  Driven by factors like geopolitical regulation and industry specific compliance needs, these clouds are on the rise as they serve smaller subsets of people in a more specialized way. 

This trend is at odds with the history of cloud services to date. Previously, cloud evolution has initially stuck with very industry-neutral, horizontal offerings.  However, that picture is changing before our eyes. The future of the cloud looks more like a verticalized array of offerings that focus on industry specific requirements. 

Tune in to the latest episode of Cloud Cover to hear Jo Peterson and her panel of expert guests investigate the growth – and potential – of regional and vertical clouds.

Vertical and Regional Clouds: Why Now and What’s Next?

The technology sector is just as driven by trends as any other, with new innovations providing fresh opportunities for companies to get ahead. In a hyper-competitive environment like today, no decision maker wants to miss the boat and fall behind their rivals. The challenge is figuring out where the true value in these tools lies – and how to maximize the impact of these new advances within existing cloud architectures. 

In the current technological landscape, it is AI and automation that are becoming the primary motivations for cloud investments. This is driven mainly by what IT leaders see as the transformative power of these dynamic technologies. As we head into Q2 2024, cloud has become the foundational element in organizational AI strategy. Yet there isn’t really a blueprint for how to do it successfully.

What are the key considerations IT leaders must address when contemplating or optimizing their AI and automation strategies and initiatives?

In today’s session we’ll explore:
— Business and cloud specific goals
— Data quality and availability
— Technology selection
— Outages, scalability, security, and contingency plans
— Talent and expertise
— Ethical and compliance considerations

Cloud and AI Integration: Optimizing AI Strategy for Real Impact

Edge computing is no new phenomenon. In fact, the origins of edge go back to the 1990s with the creation of the first content delivery network (CDN), which put data collecting nodes closer to end users. But this technology was limited to images and videos, not massive workloads of data. At first glance, it doesn’t seem that Edge would be a good match for current network needs. Yet fast forward to 2024 and some predict mass migration from the cloud to the edge. Why is that?

During this latest episode of Cloud Cover, Jo Peterson and guests will explore that question and some of the up and coming trends around cloud and edge today. Key predictions and discussion points will include:

— Edge Adoption Will Increase as AI Adoption Increases 
— Edge Computing Will Support Sustainable Practices
— Edge Computing Will Drive New Consumer Experiences for Retailers

All Grown Up: Edge Computing Today and its Role in Cloud Workloads

Looking back on last year, there were several notable advances for cloud computing. Yet arguably, the most important cloud computing trend of 2023 wasn’t about technology or architecture. It wasn’t even really a specific practice. Instead, it was about cloud optimization: a strategy that emphasizes cloud cost optimization, workload placement and an interdepartmental approach to cloud utilization. After the initial rush to embrace cloud at every turn, many companies began to realize that they hadn’t been strategic in their implementation. FinOps was the trend that was most likely to play a critical role as individual organizations tried to navigate their cloud environments in a more efficient way.

By the close of 2023, FinOps had exerted major influence on the way many organizations approached cloud computing. A few months into 2024 and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. In this latest episode of Cloud Cover, host Jo Peterson and a panel of experts will take a look back – as well as a look forward – at the FinOps trend.

Cloud FinOps: The Quiet Trend of 2023 That Isn't Going Anywhere

The recent snowball of development in artificial intelligence has led to widespread adoption of the technology. It’s no surprise that we’re now seeing Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) enter the market: a cloud-based service offering artificial intelligence (AI) outsourcing. AIaaS is an accessible way to test out AI as it enables individuals and businesses to experiment with AI and even take AI to production for large-scale use cases, with low risk and without a large up-front investment
 
According to Global Market Insights, the AI as a Service market size was valued at $6.4 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 25% between 2023 and 2032. This is partly due to the wealth of new opportunities that AI technology is fuelling; the growing number of innovative startups worldwide is expected to drive the market growth.
 
Join us in this latest episode of Cloud Cover as we explore how AI as a Service is joining the growing list of “as a service” tech solutions that business customers are deploying to:
— increase customer value 
— remain cutting edge and 
— differentiate their products and services in the marketplace.

Deploying "AI as a Service" in Cloud Environments

When it comes to enterprise technology, no company wants to be left behind by its competitors or stuck using outdated software. This may explain the sharp rise in cloud adoption over the past few years – even in cases where it wasn’t the best choice. Now, many organizations are realizing that they may have made a mistake and overcommitted to the cloud. According to Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), 60% of companies have repatriated some workloads from the cloud back on-premises.
 
Repatriation doesn’t mean a company has entirely given up on the cloud. Instead, it’s about determining where digital operations will function best. There are advantages and disadvantages to the cloud, but also to on-premise networks. So what are the factors that organizations should consider when deciding which workload goes where? What are some best practices for the repatriation process?
 
In the first 2024 episode of Cloud Cover, Jo Peterson and her panel of expert guests will focus on factors like cost; data sovereignty and privacy regulations; security; and latency. Additionally, the group will share some best practice advice for organizations considering cloud repatriation.

Public Cloud Repatriation: Which Workload Should Go Where?

As cloud adoption soars, the associated costs are also rising. Worldwide spending on public cloud alone is expected to reach $591 billion this year, a 20.7% uptick from 2022's $490 billion, based on Gartner’s research. Findings from Flexera’s 2023 State of the Cloud Report show that cloud cost management surpasses security as a top priority: 82% of respondents cited managing cloud spend, edging out security concerns at 79%. It’s clear that cloud is taking up more of the budget than before — but this doesn’t mean that cloud spend can’t be optimized.
 
In this latest episode of “Cloud Cover,” we’ll explore the shifting challenges in the cloud landscape and discuss the increased reliance on cloud; forecasting challenges; the shared responsibility model of cloud cost management and the cloud skills gap as a contributing factor. Our panel of expert speakers will also provide some tips and tricks to help decrease cloud spend.

Speakers:
Jo Peterson, VP of Cloud & Security Services at Clarify360
Matt Brickey, SVP of Professional Services at Tierpoint
Rob Zelinka, CIO of Jack Henry
Kris Bliesner, CEO of Vega Cloud

Wrangling Cloud Costs & Optimizing Spend in 2023

Cloud Adoption

Cloud

Fintech

Financial Planning

Cost

Cloud Infrastructure

Cloud Architecture

Public Cloud

Cost Management

Cloud Strategy

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Wrangling Cloud Costs & Optimizing Spend in 2023

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