5 Benefits of Using Unified Cloud Management

In a hybrid cloud environment, IT teams often select the deployment option that provides them the best performance and cost advantages.

For example, when storing large media files, the public cloud is usually preferred, due to its cost-efficiency and scalability over local storage.

However, if the IT team finds it challenging to synchronize their private storage with the public cloud, administrating the two different environments will demand extra effort. Such inefficiencies may prevent the organization from capitalizing on the anticipated cost benefits.

Here are three reasons why hybrid cloud operations can become costlier than expected:

• Multiple tools: Maintaining separate tools for cloud and on-premises management can lead to higher operational expenses.
• Decreased visibility: Without a single view of the entire IT environment, organizations may overprovision resources, increasing costs unnecessarily.
• Compliance risks: Fragmented management makes generating reports or demonstrating adherence to regulations harder.

As per the Canadian Hybrid Cloud Report, only 36 percent of Canadian organizations surveyed indicated using a unified cloud management platform. Increasing adoption of these platforms can help combat rising cloud costs.

Here are five ways infrastructure teams with a well-integrated cloud management solution can obtain benefits across their IT environment.

Managing multiple billing dashboards for cost metrics such as monthly consumption, service quotas and more can make evaluating the total cost of ownership (TCO) across platforms harder. Therefore, it’s crucial to create a single, unified view that can help IT teams optimize cloud spending.

A centralized platform aggregates all costs from various cloud services (e.g., AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud) into a single dashboard. This allows teams to track expenses, identify inefficiencies and allocate budgets more effectively.

This transparency helps organizations avoid unexpected bills, optimize resource usage and prioritize spending on critical initiatives. It also helps in creating more predictable and efficient financial plans.

A hybrid infrastructure typically consists of multiple disparate services working in tandem. For instance, an organization may host customer data on a cloud-based SQL service while using virtual machines from a different provider due to vendor-specific benefits.

This interplay may require IT administrators to manage several control planes for routine tasks, which can be complex and cumbersome.

As per the Canadian Hybrid Cloud Report, 26 percent of surveyed organizations manage each cloud using their own tools or services with minimal integration.

A unified system simplifies the management of multiple cloud platforms by offering a single interface to control all resources, no matter which cloud they belong to.

Instead of juggling different tools for each cloud provider, IT teams use one platform to deploy, monitor and manage applications across all clouds. This reduces complexity and frees IT teams to focus on strategic projects rather than navigating multiple systems.

It also helps IT teams build a robust multicloud architecture that can support business demands and ensure a reliable customer experience in the face of market pressures.

As an organization seeks to extend its IT perimeter to a new cloud or on-premises environment, it must look to address any security vulnerabilities that may be detected in the process. These vulnerabilities need constant monitoring as they may arise constantly.

This becomes a problem when IT administrators have to deal with a complex set of interconnections. Without proper monitoring, vulnerable API endpoints or improper firewall rules may stay hidden until a cyberincident occurs.

A unified management suite helps IT teams build a holistic view of their IT landscape, spanning cloud networks, applications and APIs. This ensures consistent security measures and regulatory compliance across all cloud environments.

With fewer security and compliance gaps, organizations can experience fewer disruptions, reduced liability and achieve greater customer trust while saving on potential penalties or damage control costs.

As per the Canadian Hybrid Cloud Report, 41 percent of organizations expect to purchase performance monitoring tools in the next two years.

For software teams, the speed of deployment depends on the agility of the underlying hybrid infrastructure. As long as they deploy to a single platform, they’ll face minimal obstacles, but as more platforms (multiple clouds or PaaS offerings) get involved, the process becomes complicated.

A unified cloud management platform is a bridge that allows software teams to collaborate and deploy with fewer complications. A unified platform speeds up IT administration tasks and helps IT teams deploy for their developers faster. It also helps improve deployment velocity by automating key deployment processes.

The platform streamlines processes like testing, deployment and monitoring by automating repetitive tasks and providing developers with a consistent environment, regardless of the cloud provider.

This leads to faster product rollouts, more frequent updates and the ability to adapt quickly to market changes, giving businesses a competitive edge.

IT talent shortages may prevent organizations from achieving their hybrid infrastructure goals, as building out a complex architecture often requires specialized skills.

Organizations that use homegrown solutions or provider-specific management tools often depend on trained IT experts to manage operations. In times of talent uncertainty and varying market conditions, they may have limited access to such talent, leading to operational disruptions.  

However, the pressure on IT teams can be reduced if the hybrid architecture can be simplified to the point where it doesn’t require extensive training.

A unified management control plane achieves this by abstracting complex controls into an intuitive dashboard that is much more manageable for IT staff. It can simplify the more complicated aspects such as networking handling, cyberthreat hunting, etc.  

By bridging skill gaps, businesses can operate more efficiently without needing expensive, hard-to-find experts, ensuring consistent operations and faster problem resolution.

CDW Canada provides organizations with the tools, expertise and partnerships to develop hybrid infrastructures that are not only robust but future ready.

We partner with leading technology providers so that organizations can access cutting-edge tools and services that seamlessly integrate into their hybrid environments.

Our team of highly skilled professionals specialize in implementing unified cloud management strategies. Whether your organization faces excessive cloud spend or needs support integrating multiple clouds, our advisory services offer tailored guidance for each scenario.