By Peter Turpin
As organizations continue to embrace digital transformation through the rapid adoption of cloud services, they can face significant security challenges stemming from cloud sprawl, technical debt, and improper right-sizing of IT resources. Unchecked cloud sprawl and accumulating technical debt are not just operational challenges – they are significant security risks. In today’s era of sophisticated cyber threats, strengtheningthe security and control of the IT estate has never been more important, which is where effective cloud cost management and IT optimization can transform growth. Here’s how to do it.
Manage Technical Debt
Technical debt is the implied cost of future IT infrastructure rework caused by choosing expedient IT solutions like shortcuts, software patches or deferred IT upgrades over long-term, sustainable designs. It’s easily accrued when under pressure to innovate quickly but leads to waste and security gaps and vulnerabilities that compromise an organization’s integrity, making systems more susceptible to cyber threats. Technical debt can also be costly to eradicate, with companies spending an average of 20-40% of their IT budgets on addressing it. The impact of technical debt can be mitigated by taking the following actions:
- Regularly refactor code – As soon as a piece of code is written, it instantly creates tech debt. Use a refactoring tool to ‘clean up’ old code by removing duplicate code, patches, and other glitches to improve readability and boost overall software performance.
- Invest in quality assurance – Effective quality assurance involves tracking bugs and other recurring issues within your IT infrastructure. Regular testing also helps IT teams understand which areas need refactoring or might cause future issues.
- Adopt agile methodologies – Being able to adapt and respond to change is essential in business, and adopting an agile approach to technical debt can be transformational. Build agile methodologies into your organization’s culture to help mitigate the impact of both intentional and unintentional technical debt.
Consolidate Cloud Sprawl
Cloud sprawl refers to the uncontrolled proliferation of cloud services, instances, and resources within an organization. It often results from rapid growth, lack of visibility, and decentralized decision-making. At Surveil, we have over 2.5 billion data points to lean on to identify trends and we know that organizations with unmanaged cloud environments can see up to 30% higher cloud costs due to redundant and idle resources.Unchecked cloud sprawl can lead to increased security vulnerabilities due to unmanaged and unmonitored resources. Take these actions to gain visibility and control over your cloud environments:
- Centralize cloud management – Bring cloud management under one team or platform to ensure more accurate tracking of cloud activity.
- Implement robust cloud governance frameworks – Put rules and guiding principles in place to simplify operations and unify data, helping to boost compliance and security across your network.
- Utilize cloud management tools – These automated tools help optimize resource usage, monitor performance, and detect security threats, for example, unusual usage patterns.
Right-Size IT Resources
Right-sizing involves aligning IT resources precisely with the demands of applications or workloads to optimize performance and cost. Our data shows that organizations that effectively right-size their IT estate can reduce cloud costs by up to 40%, unlocking business value to invest in other business priorities. The pitfalls of improper or inadequate right-sizing can lead to over-provisioned or under-provisioned resources, both of which can introduce security risks. Take the following steps to ensure optimal resource allocation and reduce security vulnerabilities:
- Analyse usage and performance: Start your right-sizing journey by gathering data on how your resources are being used and how your applications are performing. This data will help identify where adjustments need to be made.
- Continuously monitor and analyze resource usage – Cloud monitoring is key for any organization’s observability strategy, and its benefits include cost optimization, performance visibility, benchmarking, and improved operational efficiency. This type of monitoring can also help mitigate security threats.
- Use automated scaling solutions – Dynamic resource scaling can improve efficiency, performance, and the scalability of your IT estate.
Secure and Control the IT Estate
Securing the IT estate involves protecting all technology assets and resources from cyber threats while ensuring compliance and operational efficiency. A well-secured IT estate reduces the risk of data breaches, ensures business continuity, and maintains regulatory compliance. In fact, businesses that implement comprehensive security frameworks experience fewer security incidents. Fortify your organization’s IT estate by taking the following steps:
- Implement comprehensive security measures – Zero-trust architectures and endpoint protection can help strengthen security and protect against cyber-attacks.
- Conduct regular audits – Keep your organization’s IT estate fully secure by regularly auditing your IT systems and processes to predict and prevent potential vulnerabilities and stay ahead of potential threats.
- Deploy timely updates and upgrades – Apply software patches and updates as and when they are needed – avoid delays, especially with manual updates. Maximum functionality and stability will in turn boost cybersecurity.
Through strategic right-sizing and robust security measures, waste caused by technical debt and cloud sprawl can be converted into value, transforming IT estates into resilient, efficient, and secure environments. It’s about turning potential pitfalls into opportunities for innovation and growth, ensuring that our digital transformation efforts are both sustainable and secure.
Peter Turpin is CEO at high-performance cloud analytics and insights engines, Surveil. Peter is an
experienced SaaS executive and visionary entrepreneur with a wealth of experience in B2B SaaS distribution, having spent 12 years at Snow Software. During his tenure at Snow, Peter played a pivotal role in developing the business in the U.K. before moving to the U.S. as the first employee and firmly establishing Snow as a leading software asset management providers in that market.