Category: Cloud Series

Hot on the heels of Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) is Microsoft’s Azure. While not has large as AWS, Microsoft’s budding thought child serves as an ideal cloud solution to those completely addicted to Microsoft’s services. In 2017, Gartner named Microsoft Azure as a leader in the cloud infrastructure-as-a-service space. While Microsoft is quick to stroke its own ego, what are the real advantages and disadvantages of signing up for Microsoft Azure? At MetrixData 360, we want your experience in the cloud to be as pain-free as possible and we have helped many of our clients turn that goal into a reality, so in this article we’ll dive into a detailed picture of what it will actually be like to move to Azure.

Microsoft Azure Pros

High Availablility and Uptime

While Microsoft is not as large as AWS, Azure still is the second largest cloud platform in the industry today, with datacenters found in several different regions, making it ideal for international businesses. Although it should be noted that Azure is not available in every country, and although Azure will only store your data in regions where you permit it to be stored, you need to make sure that you pick a region where your data is allowed to be hosted. Azure also promises a 99.995% uptime rate — an impressive accomplishment in the Cloud Industry.

Flexibility

Moving to the cloud can be an expensive experience, so it is important for businesses to make the most of their cloud platform once they are there. This flexibility is important, as it will enable you to scale up your projects as your business continues to grow. Azure proves to be an easily scalable platform and barely a few clicks of a button will get you the additional licenses you may need. Imagine being able to scale down your software environment over the weekend or scaling up only for your busiest days of the year. Microsoft on-prem licensing can often prove quite difficult to remove licenses from, particularly the Enterprise Agreement (EA), which makes the easy adjustability of the Azure solutions a breath of fresh air, especially in this time of unpredictability.

Security

One of the most appealing features that Azure has to offer its clients is a state of the art security system following a ADADSC approach: Detect, Assess, Diagnose, Stabilize, and Close. They have proven to be the leading force in IaaS security and have received multiple compliance certifications for their high standards. Their security features are both reliable and user-friendly with protections like multi-factor authentication and password requirements.

Cons of Microsoft Azure

Complexity

As a SaaS platform, Azure can easily become an extremely complicated environment for larger companies. Before the cloud, there was an extremely rigorous process when it came to purchasing more licenses, usually in the form of a negotiation or a contract renewal. On the other hand, with the cloud it is easy to purchase new products; all you need is a company credit card and an afternoon. Many companies do not have any sort of processes to regulate the spending of employees when confronted with their cloud platform. It will require management and strict processes to make sure purchasing is controlled, environments are well managed, and projects are closed after they have reached their conclusion. For larger companies, it will be worth investigating a SaaS management solution, along with someone specially trained to manage your Azure platform.

Data Transfer

Azure services are all subject to data transfer fees that are often the cause of stacked hidden fees. This is not unique to Azure as all of the large cloud services like AWS and Google do this same gouging of their customer base. This separate fee for in and out data can prove quite costly for large companies, so you should be aware of this to avoid any surprises.

Support

Despite their high-quality products and global reach, Microsoft is not very good at dealing with the sheer volume of their customers and treating each customer as a unique individual. Anyone who has tried to get Microsoft’s attention would be able to tell you that. However, as a cloud service provider, that is one thing that Microsoft will have to do on a regular basis as companies run into technical issues and server problems that must be handled quickly. To answer this, Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider Program (CSP) allows companies to experience better customer service.

Complicated Pricing

Controlling cost in Azure can be a daunting task that warrants its own book; however, touching briefly on the subject, Azure solutions are structured to encompass many stand-alone services. Each service also has complimentary services that are needed to run the services that you are after. For instance, simply wanting an application and a database will also require you to purchase some form of storage and networking. In addition, you must also consider additional fees such as transfer costs and backups which can act as sneaky hidden fees.

As such, building your unique Azure solution involves combining these multiple factors based on your preference, which means calculating your exact price can be difficult.

In an attempt to make things easier, Microsoft has a universal pricing metric based on the hourly rate, so estimating cost comes down to estimating how long you will be using each service. If you want to figure out cost, you should seek to understand the full scope of the services that you will consume in order to effectively calculate how much each service will cost. However, if you have multiple services running at once, each with their own pricing, it is easy to understand how such a task can quickly get away from you.

Getting Your Azure Spending Under Control

Moving to the Cloud can be a new and exciting time, and it is important that you have a strong understanding of what you need and how it will be used in order to create a unique solution that best suits the needs of your business. This will keep your cost at a minimum and your performance at its highest. At MetrixData 360, We specialize in assisting companies who wish to lower their cloud spending through license optimization practices. For more information on how MetrixData 360 as helps many of its clients successfully migrate to the cloud you can check out our cloud service page.

Get in Touch with an Azure Expert Today:

Are you shopping for a new place to store your data on the Cloud or are you moving there for the first time? It may be easy to assume that your only options are AWS, Azure, and Google. But while it’s true these giants claim a huge chunk of the marketplace, they are not the only options you have. We’ve put together a who’s who of the top cloud providers outside the Big 3. 

Whatever brings you into the Cloud market, there’s something here for everyone. It’s important you pick a provider that gives you a solid solution that is right for you.

At MetrixData 360, we’re in the business of making sure your Cloud migration is smooth and painless with as few unneeded expenses as possible from a software licensing perspective. So, in this article we’ll go over a few of the hottest cloud providers of 2020 who act as suitable alternatives to the big three and see which one is right for you.

Why Go for a Small Cloud Provider?

Bigger is always better right? Not necessarily. Smaller cloud providers have an advantage over the larger cloud providers when it comes to the following areas:

• Innovative Solutions:

Smaller companies need something that makes them stand out and this often leads to innovative products and services.

Top Small Cloud Platforms of 2021

Since Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services make up more than 50% of the cloud platform marketshare, it’s only natural that they would show up in anyone’s search for a cloud platform. But that market saturation tends to wash out smaller players who can often provide just as much or more value as the big 3, and sometimes at a better rate.

Oracle Cloud

Perhaps a little bit of a late bloomer when compared to its competition like Amazon and Azure, Oracle has still proven to be a reliable product and shows steady growth.

Although Oracle does have a hand in both the PaaS and the IaaS industries, Oracle is primarily a software provider, covering companies that range from small start-ups to enterprises. For this reason, SaaS will be Oracle’s trump card, along with their autonomous database services. Oracle also offers hybrid solutions for their cloud customers.

Pros

Cons

Cisco

Cisco has become a collection of multi-cloud products and applications, creating for its customers complete freedom when it comes to workload placement, with its main appeal being Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI). It has partnerships with Azure and AWS, with expected expansion into Google Cloud, proving ideal for multi-cloud deployments and hybrid solutions.

Pros

Cons

Kamatera Cloud

Kamatera is known for its low prices in Cloud services and high-performance infrastructure offering reliable performance and unhindered availability, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes.

Kamatera also tempts its customers with tailor-made VPS hosting and offering you full access to their Management Platform features.

In 2018, FinancesOnline awarded Kamatera the Great User Experience and Rising Star awards. Part of what won them those awards are their around the clock, 7 days a week, all year-round tech support (and you’ll talk to an actual human, how exciting!). Their data centers stretch across four continents to provide global support and the promise of 99.95% uptime guaranteed.

Pros

Cons

Rackspace

Offering their expertise in several different cloud services, such as dedicated hosting, AWS, Microsoft, and OpenStack, Rackspace has an excellent reputation for innovation and was named the leading hosting provider in Internet Retail for three years in a row.

Pros

Cons

Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba has really taken off in the Asian markets, acting as the single largest enterprise-only Cloud provider. The Chinese company has a wide array of high-performing services very similar to AWS, including data storage, relational databases, big data processing, content delivery networks, just to name a few.

Pros

Cons

VMware Cloud Horizon

While perhaps still smaller than the giants of the industry, VMware Cloud Horizon still remains a heavy hitter, with a global network and services that are paired with reasonable prices.

The main benefits of VMware Cloud Horizon is its security, its unified management, its maximum flexibility and its high availability promising 99.99% uptime with confidence.

Pros

Cons

SAP

SAP Cloud Platform has gained a small but loyal fanbase of businesses of all sizes. Its main appeal comes from its high scalability, its top-quality support, and its valuable features like data synchronization and negotiable pricing.

Pros

Cons

Questions to Ask Your New Cloud Provider

The first step in picking a good partner is asking what kind of services they provide. Many people move to the Cloud for a variety of different reasons: to save money, remove the hassle of managing software architecture on-prem, or to increase your economies of scale.

To know what kind of answer you’re looking for, you’ll need to know what your cloud computing needs are. This will dictate the type of services you’ll require.

Security

You’ll want to know how secure this provider is and their capabilities of storing and protecting your data. Make sure they have standard security measures in place and are constantly striving to improve.

Make sure you are completely comfortable in handing over your data.

It’s also a good idea to make sure your Provider adheres to the legislation specific to your industry regarding data management, privacy, and security.

Data Centers

You will want to know where your provider’s data centers are located and if those data centers are compatible with where your company will be working. You will also want to know how safe these data centers are.

As the function of your business becomes dependent on your ability to access the internet, ideally this number should be zero. You should also ask what Disaster Recovery solutions they have in place regarding data redundancies.

If you’d like more information on how to properly license for disaster recovery, you can check out our new article: Licensing a Disaster Recovery Environment in Oracle.

Scalability of Architecture

As your business grows, it is important to make sure that your cloud provider can compensate for your growth.

When it comes to the Cloud, there might be several overwhelming options to pick from, especially when confronted with choosing a provider. Switching providers can be a nightmare, so it’s always best to get it right the first time.

At Metrixdata 360, we have helped many clients successfully migrate to the Cloud with as little expense as possible; we make sure that everything is organized in regard to your licensing so that when you move to the Cloud, you won’t take your compliance issues with you.

If you’d like to learn more, you can check out our Cloud Migration page.

The Cloud has made computing that much easier for companies; they are able to work from home, share files in a single location, and they can sleep easy at night knowing that all their licensing problems are a thing of the past…or are they? Unfortunately, there are some common ways companies become non-compliant in the cloud.

With pay-as-you-go pricing models and easy scalability, it would seem as though there’d be no chance to run up against any trouble in the Cloud. Still, there are a few scenarios that present compliance risks that you should be wary about as you make the transition into the Cloud.

At MetrixData 360, we have helped many of our customers transition into the Cloud smoothly and with as little impact as possible when it comes to their expenses, so let’s look at how compliance is still something to be wary of, even in the Cloud.

Compliance Issue #1: Expecting Vendors to Keep You Compliant

If you are hosting all your products on a vendor’s platform, you’d think that vendor would let you know if you were overspending or if you were using services you are not entitled to.

It’s not for their lack of knowledge – they know exactly what you’re using and how much because your servers are their servers. However, there are services on the Cloud that exist without a cap of any kind.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a great example of this. The product tracks social media mentions and it does not stop once you reach the limit of your mentions, it just keeps going while simply tripling your cost for its tracking efforts —meanwhile, your 20K monthly expense could jump up to 250K if left unattended.

Your software vendor will also not stop you from using services you aren’t entitled to.

For instance, if an administrator were to enable Azure Threat Protection at the domain level, they could do so, and the protection would cover every user in the domain including users that don’t have the proper license to entitle them to this protection.

This type of expectation that organizations govern themselves could leave companies having to pay up tremendous amounts of unforeseen software spend, along with non-compliance fees at their next true-up.

Compliance Issue #2: Using Expired Plans

In the case of some vendors, despite the fact that a license may have expired, its curdled remains are still accessible to their user. The only way a technical barrier is activated to a company is when every license within that organization has expired for that service.

As long as there is still a single active license, then anyone who has an expired license can still access that service, which can leave a company exposed to unexpected fees.

Compliance Issue #3: Mixing Plans

When you purchase a Microsoft 365 Subscription plan, you are signing up for the access to applications and services such as Office, Exchange, and SharePoint. These Subscription plans range from basic (F1) to top of the line and most expensive (E5).

Hidden costs can easily crop up when you mix plans. Features may be accessible to members of your organization who do not have the license to use them, which puts you into dangerous compliance risk territory.

To make matters worse, it is not exactly clear which licenses are needed to use some features. Manual configuration is advised to avoid this compliance risk.

You’ll be asked to buy extra “standalone licenses” for lower-level plans in order to compensate for users accessing high-level suites.

Compliance Issue #4: Underestimating Total Expense

The sheer nature of the pricing metric of Cloud products makes it so that it can be difficult to estimate true cost. It may seem as though two extra dollars a month won’t have that big of an impact, but once it is scaled up to your whole organization, it can leave you having to pay out a large chunk of your software budget.

One client of ours had this exact problem with an unexpected $8,000 spike in their software spend. We tracked the unexpected spending to a desktop belonging to a junior IT team member who had accidentally turned on Blob Storage for his entire company.

In the defense of the junior IT member, there had only been barely a few dollars of difference between the storage applications he had been asked to pick between, but it had cost his company a tremendous amount of unneeded spend.

How to Avoid Becoming Non-Compliant in the Cloud

While the Cloud might not be the balmy risk-free getaway promised, it can still provide your organization with the flexibility it needs to succeed, and it doesn’t have to be a budgeting nightmare if you follow these simple steps:

Get a Handle on your Cloud Solution

The Cloud can be liberation for many companies.

However, as great as it may be, it is important that you are aware of the stumbling blocks that befall companies who head straight to the Cloud thinking it will be the end of their compliance issues, because oftentimes it is not.

Compliance gaps and audits are a massive form of revenue for Microsoft, so despite the apparent transition away from restrictive arrangements that allow for compliance gaps in the first place, you may find yourself butting heads with its Cloud equivalent.

At MetrixData 360, we are more than prepared and capable in helping you achieve your goals in the Cloud. We know how to monitor your usage with our Azure Usage Reporting tool, which can help you solve any of your Azure compliance or spending issues.

For more information, you can check out our Azure Usage Reporting Tool page here.

On your way to the Cloud, you may be confronted with a lot of confusing terms while deciding on how to build your Cloud architecture. Terms like Cloud Native, Cloud Agnostic, and Cloud Enabled are often used seemingly at random.

At MetrixData 360, we have helped many of our clients successfully migrate to the cloud and we want to ensure your migration to the Cloud is successful as well.

We’re going to break down the difference between the three terms and what advantages and disadvantages each of these solutions can bring to your Cloud platform.

But, before you dive head first into the complex definitions of cloud infrastructure, we suggest you watch this video to get warmed up:

Cloud Native

Definition: What is Cloud Native?

Cloud Native is a bit of a loose term that can generally be described as the action of building and running applications that exploit the advantages of the cloud delivery model. Kind of vague, isn’t it? When you sign up for Cloud Native architecture, it’s typically only a matter of selecting a Cloud Provider and building your architecture to stick with that provider exclusively. Cloud Native architecture relies heavily on services tied to the Cloud Provider themselves, such as Azure Monitoring services in Azure or CloudWatch in AWS.

Companies go about establishing Cloud Native platforms by utilizing vendor-specific offerings like AWS’ function-as-a-service and Azure’s globally-distributed database Cosmos DB.

The Pros of Cloud Native

The Cons of Cloud Native

Cloud Native vs. Cloud Enabled Applications

As if the Cloud couldn’t be more confusing, ‘Cloud Native’ is actually a two-fold term which also may be used when referring to applications.

Not to be mistaken with Cloud Enabled applications, Cloud Native applications are ones that are built exclusively for the Cloud; they were born in the Cloud and are deployed and work best in the Cloud.  It is expected that Cloud Native applications will become the norm as time progresses, with 90% of all new apps using Cloud Native structures and an estimated 35% of all production apps being Cloud Native by 2022.  

Cloud Native Solutions are often viewed as the more attractive option since they better harness the full advantages of life in the clouds, they are designed to host multi-tenant instances and they are usually significantly cheaper than Cloud Enabled applications.

While Cloud Native and Cloud Enabled might be used interchangeably at times, they are not always discussing the exact same thing.

Cloud Enabled applications are applications which have been originally made for and in a static environment on-prem and are meant to reside on an in-house server or data center. This piece of legacy enterprise software is then simply tweaked and restructured to be enabled in the Cloud in order to offer its customer’s remotely available and easy management. While they may be similar to their Cloud native counterparts, using a Cloud Enabled application will leave you with limitations on how that application can interact with the full cloud environment, creating issues such as:

Vendors who offer Cloud Enabled applications might try to pass them off as Cloud Native, since Cloud Native solutions are the far more popular option on the market and are considered to be a short-hand for ‘modern applications and infrastructure practices.’

Cloud Agnostic

Definition: What Is Cloud Agnostic?

Being Cloud Agnostic means building your architecture to utilize everything open source technologies and portable components have to offer, this architecture is built to be able to switch providers easily, or even allow for the use of multiple cloud providers simultaneously. Unlike Cloud Native solutions, where you will typically be at the mercy of your Cloud solution provider, Cloud Agnostic gives you the freedom to forge your own path into the clouds.

The Pros of Cloud Agnostic

The Cons of Cloud Agnostic

Getting Help for Your Migration to the Cloud

The Cloud can be a turbulent place, with so many options and muddled terms that it might be easier to stay rooted to your on-prem solution.

Software infrastructures are unique for every company, there’s no one way to do it and the same is true when it comes to building your company’s platform in the Cloud. When deciding what your Cloud platform will look like, it’s important that you know what your options are so you aren’t limited to a solution that might not be best suited your company’s objectives, goals, and budget.

At Metrixdata 360, we understand this complexity and companies desires to pick their own customizable solution, something that we prioritize when helping our clients in their transition. You stay in the driver’s seat and we ensure that your solution is as cost-effective as possible. Together, we’ll get you to where you want to be!

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you smoothly transition into the cloud, then you can check out our Cloud Page.

An Overview on Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines can bring increased mobility and productivity to your business, but before you start filling your screen up with VMs, it is important to first have a strong understanding of what they are and how you can license them. At MetrixData 360, we have worked alongside plenty of organizations looking to maximize the efficiency of their software environment, including the use of their VMs. So today we’ll get into a few of your most pressing questions surrounding virtual machines.

What is a Virtual Machine (VM)?

Just to quickly summarize, a virtual machine (VM) is a virtual environment that behaves separately from the rest of your software environment. It is basically a computer that runs inside another computer, appearing as a window on your screen. It can drastically reduce the time that is required to bring a new server online, going from weeks or months to mere minutes or hours. By booting an operating installer disc (either a virtual or physical one) inside the VM, it is tricked into thinking it is running on a real computer. The actual operating system on your device is called the Host operating system and the operating systems on the VMs are called Guests. Just to keep things from getting too confusing, here is a guide to some terminology from VM Ware.

VMs come with many advantages:

The downside of VMs is that the virtualization process has the tendency to add some lag to the programs you are attempting to run, especially if that program requires copious amounts of storage.

You can run multiple VMs at the same time, with the only limitation being how much storage your hard drive has.

VM Sprawl

The main appeal to virtual machines is how fast they are to bring online and the lack of governance that usually surrounds physical servers within an organization. However, with this agility comes the main concern with VMs: letting them run away from you. This is true for anything that is easy and fast to make, whether that is emails, files, or databases, all of which suffer from sprawl issues. VM sprawl occurs when your company loses track of how many VMs are connected to your software environment. It remains one of the biggest concerns organizations face when it comes to virtual machines. When employees can spin up as many VMs as they like, your company runs the risk of having more than your network can support or than your licenses allow you to have.

There are a few ways one can deal with VM sprawl. You can get a reporting tool to monitor your software environment, however, this only addresses part of the issue, since reporting tools will only give you visibility into the problem. You can track whether it is getting better or worse but there may be very little indication of where the problem is coming from. It is also important to have policies and governance in place that will allow for the cleanup of unused VMs and make it possible to recycle them back into your environment.

Licensing Virtual Machines

Virtual machines are essentially devices that have been built and simply exist on another device. So, in case you were wondering, you absolutely need a license for them. How those VMs are licensed is the real tricky part. Some of the features that can create challenges around licensing VM include:

As you can see, trying to license VMs can be challenging, especially with the minimal fingerprint a VM leaves on its host device and the quick and easy ability to clone a VM. If you license a device to a piece of software, potentially countless VMs could access that software.

The specific rules revolving around licenses differ from vendor to vendor and licensing type to licensing type.

For IBM, for instance, a VM needs to be licensed for any software that it comes into contact with, and it must be licensed as though it were a regular device. You can find more details about the matter in our article.

For Microsoft, licenses that are eligible for license mobility through software can be moved to an Azure environment with default per-minute cost. Windows Server licenses are not eligible for license mobility but if you have Software Assurance, you can utilize the Azure Hybrid Benefits in order to access cheaper per-minute costs.

If you can’t already tell, this can become quite confusing very quickly.

There are general rules you can use to minimize your risk of running up against compliance issues.

Working from Home? Make Sure Your Licensing Allows It!

Still Have Questions?

Virtual Machines can make our lives so much easier and make our work so much more productive, so long as we properly understand them and know how to license them. The last thing you need right now is being forced to either prove which nearly invisible virtual machine did what or simply take the brunt the full blow of an audit penalty, especially when you’re pretty sure you don’t owe as much as the auditors are saying you do. At MetrixData 360, we have helped companies clean up the messiest software environments by getting them started on software asset management and taught them to keep even the most untraceable software in line. Learn more about how you can get started with software asset management.