Multi-cloud optimisation for financial services
Learn how this leading financial services business reduced their combined AWS and Azure spend by 25% while improving security and governance.
Leading A/NZ Financial services organisation
This established Australian and New Zealand financial services organisation had been operating a traditional, on-site IT environment before migrating a number of its critical customer facing services to Interactive’s Private Cloud.
Recent business growth, including acquisitions, led to issues in the cost and management of its public cloud environment.
Key benefits
- 25% overall cost savings in ongoing public cloud spend
- Documentation and visibility for all public cloud services in use
- Improved management and security of AWS and Azure footprint
- Greater accuracy in cost forecasting and planning for future project
A lack of visibility on public cloud services and spending
Interactive’s customer had inherited a public cloud footprint across AWS and Microsoft Azure due to a recent acquisition.
However, the company’s internal IT team was facing rising monthly public cloud costs and usage. Without any clear documentation on the cloud services and applications in use and the team’s limited experience and knowledge of public cloud, the organisation found it difficult to determine the cost effectiveness and efficiency of these cloud services.
In addition to the lack of visibility of the applications and processes running there was a larger question on how data was being stored and accessed on public cloud infrastructure. This represented an ongoing operational and security risk to the business that needed immediate action.
Using data to optimise cloud wastage
Interactive recommended undertaking its Multi-Cloud Optimisation Assessment, a complimentary service for all customers.
Taking a consulting-led approach, Interactive deployed a combination of technology tools and processes to capture and analyse data and billing information from the customer’s public cloud services. This data was collected over a month of business operations, to ensure the peaks and troughs of a normal business cycle could be fully captured and analysed.
Interactive identified orphaned resources – services that were no longer in use or required by the customer – as well as public cloud services that were more appropriate for particular business and technology requirements. Additionally, Interactive made recommendations on which services better discounts could be applied for longer term and lock-in agreements. We also uncovered in-built AWS and Azure security features that hadn’t been enabled and represented a significant risk to confidential and valuable corporate data.
Ongoing cloud visibility and governance
Interactive generated ongoing savings of 25% on the customer’s public cloud spend.
This was achieved through the identification and deletion of orphaned resources, migration of some workloads to more appropriate and cost-effective services and reducing the cost of some services with term discounts. Free native security features, including data encryption and two factor authentication, were enabled to improve overall security across both AWS and Azure environments, and for the first time, the customer had access to information on all of its public cloud services in one easily accessible online portal.
While the orphaned resources identified were relatively minor, this recurring monthly cost left unactioned was completely unnecessary and would become a considerable cost over time. Now, the organisation can ensure that any newly created orphaned public cloud resources can be quickly captured and removed, preventing these costs from ballooning in the future. The improved visibility on its public cloud services in use and their cost has armed the CIO and his team with the tools and insight needed to improve overall cloud governance and forward planning, including more accurate forecasting for future project costs in terms of any cloud resources needed.
The organisation is now well placed to transition to Interactive’s Managed Public Cloud services, ensuring continual improvement and ongoing control to maximise the value of its public cloud usage and spend.
