FinOps – It will keep your IT motoring…
without the wheels coming off

IS IT RIGHT FROM THE START?

Think back to when your first architected your IT systems and infrastructure. How much attention did you pay to the set-up?

Because in almost every situation I encounter in my job,  what you signed up for then, is not what you require now.

Microsoft Azure does have a tool called Migrate to help with the set-up, but the catch is that you really need to know your requirements inside out to use it correctly. And then once set-up, you need to constantly record your usage and then monitor it to see if you’re still rightsized.

Organisations are venting money on systems that are not rightsized, and paying monthly bills for licenses they aren’t using. And because security principles may not be aligned and best practice isn’t being followed The risk of a cyber incident is higher than it need be.

At Commercial, we’ve seen countless cases where just a small fraction of the capabilities of an IT system is being used. So why pay for the extra?

My job is to utilise some pretty nifty software and tooling, apply my knowledge and experience, and then rightsize that environment.

In other words, to take away the gas-guzzling 4×4 you use on the school run and provide you with that nice EV runaround that does the job – and saves you money.

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS…

Before any of the clever tooling we use gets a chance to work its magic, our first step is to speak with the IT team.

Often stretched for both time and resource, it’s important to demonstrate that what we can do is worth their while. And by asking some very simple questions, we can get an idea of where and how changes can be made.

First is to ask how they came to use and deploy the environment they have and most importantly, was it rightsized at the time?

In terms of the analogy, did they buy the car they needed, based on its suitability for the tasks they wanted it to perform.

Quite often the answers are surprising. Often that set-up was nothing more than a stab in the dark around what they thought was needed.

And this is where costs can mount up.

With your cloud resource you pay on a month-by-month basis and according to the usage you have in that contract, not what you require or end up using. And if you’re not using part of that resource, you are overpaying.

A LICENCE TO WASTE MONEY

It’s the same story with licensing. Virtually all of us use M365 and use some of its apps as part of our normal working day.

To a large extent, those apps are being used, and that functionality and access is required. But is that the case across the board?

How do you go about tracking what is and isn’t being used. Or whether that guy who left marketing a year ago, had his licence – which you’re still paying for –  cancelled?

Does everyone need to have the full suite of services, because there are ways to streamline the licences and therefore the costs.

Multiply those examples by the number of users you have and you can see – pretty suddenly – how costs can stack up.

When all of your day is spent doing the day job, being able to dedicate resource to a stock take is difficult. Let alone commit to doing so every year, even every month.

And that’s where we can help you. A FinOps assessment will analyse your environment, interpret the data and recommend ways that will not only make you more secure, but reduce costs too.