Thursday, March 14, 2019

Word of the Day: Cloudability

Word of the Day WhatIs.com
Daily updates on the latest technology terms | March 14, 2019
Cloudability

Cloudability is a software vendor that provides financial management tools for monitoring and analyzing cloud computing costs. Information technology (IT) administrators can use Cloudability software to track public cloud spend and help plan budgets for cloud services.

Cloudability was founded in 2011 by Mat Ellis and J.R. Storment, and its headquarters are in Portland, Oregon. The company's cloud cost management tools are primarily used by IT administrators and finance teams. Specific features of the Cloudability cost management platform include:

  • Customizable dashboard provides a graphical view of an enterprise's key performance indicators, including monthly cloud spend and estimates.
  • Alerts let users know if they have almost exceeded their budget for a particular cloud service account.
  • Daily email reports inform users of daily cloud service usage and costs trends across their business.
  • Allocation and chargeback allow users to track cloud usage and costs by specific business users, departments or teams.

The Cloudability platform is designed to work with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud and Microsoft Azure. Provider-specific features for AWS include Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cost Analytics and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Usage Analytics, which helps users identify EC2 cloud resources that can be downsized or turned off. Cloudability also has an AWS Reserved Instance Planner tool that guides users through the Reserved Instance buying process.

Cloudability offers two pricing plans: Pro and Enterprise. Both plans follow an elastic pricing model, where monthly fees are based on the amount of cloud costs that users monitor. The Enterprise plan, however, comes with additional features and a higher level of support from Cloudability.

Cloudability and FinOps

 

In order to generate more awareness about the need for companies to manage cloud service budgets, Cloudability has helped create a framework designed to break down silos between software development teams, IT operations and finance. The framework is called FinOps.

 

The goal of FinOps is to provide better communication between finance and IT teams and give both teams insight into the specific costs associated with delivering IT services, both in-house and in the cloud. To that end, the framework addresses three areas of concern: better visibility into a company's cloud spending, more accurate prediction of cloud resource demand and a governance layer to support interaction between finance and IT teams.

 

Cloudability is a founding member of the FinOps Foundation, a nonprofit industry group that encourages organizations to network and share best practices for IT procurement. Founding members include Joseph Daly, director of cloud optimization services at Nationwide, as well as several other individuals with similar roles at companies such as Atlassian, Autodesk and Spotify.

Quote of the Day

 
"Enterprises can use a variety of software tools to control cloud spending, but they would further benefit from an operational model that aligns IT more closely with finance teams." - Chris Kanaracus

Learning Center

 

Cloudability seeks to broaden the cloud cost management discussion
There's more to cloud cost management than tools. The FinOps Foundation, a nonprofit effort led by Cloudability, suggests that enterprises should push IT and finance closer together to ease cloud cost management headaches.

Cloud trends in 2019: Cost struggle, skills gap to continue
The projected cloud trends for 2019 are a reprise of previous years' patterns: Enterprises face challenges managing clouds, particularly cost optimization. Learn how managed service providers and cloud consultants plan to respond.

Cloud cost management tools heat up with Apptio sale
A $1.9 billion private equity spree for Apptio's IT spend analytics software illustrates the rapid rise of hybrid IT infrastructure, and demand for cloud cost management tools to manage spend in those environments.

Cost management the next big issue in multi-cloud computing
Multi-cloud computing is here, but enterprises struggle to manage their resources and costs across cloud boundaries. There are tools that can help, but they are not a cure-all yet.

A cloud management tools comparison guide
Cloud management tools are vital to uphold performance, monitor costs and automate systems. Our expert outlines eight tools you need in your arsenal to get the most ROI from cloud.

Quiz Yourself

 
Brokers must work closely with cloud providers, while also _________ their services to appeal to customers.
A. distinguishing
B. differentiating

Answer

Stay in Touch

 
For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition, please contact me at: mrouse@techtarget.com

Visit the Word of the Day Archives and catch up on what you've missed!

FOLLOW US

TwitterRSS
About This E-Newsletter
This e-newsletter is published by the TechTarget network. To unsubscribe from Whatis.com, click here. Please note, this will not affect any other subscriptions you have signed up for.
TechTarget

TechTarget, Whatis, 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466. Contact: webmaster@techtarget.com

Copyright 2018 TechTarget. All rights reserved.

No comments: