Cloud Sprawl and VM Sprawl<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n First, what is cloud sprawl? Simply put, cloud sprawl is the proliferation of IT resources \u2013 that provide little or no value \u2013 in the cloud. For the purposes of this discussion, we\u2019ll consider cloud to be IaaS, and the resources to be individual server VMs. VM sprawl is a similar concept that happens when a virtual environment goes unchecked. In that case, it was common for an administrator, or someone with access to vCenter, to spin up a VM for testing, perform some test or development activity, and then forget about it. The VM stayed running, consuming resources, until someone or something identified it, determined that it was no longer being used, and shut it down. It was a good thing that most midsize organizations limited vCenter or console access to perhaps 10 individuals.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So, we solved VM sprawl by limiting access to vCenter, and by maybe installing some tools to identify little-used VMs.<\/span><\/p>\n So, what are the top causes of cloud sprawl? In IT operations terms, we have the following:<\/span><\/p>\n How is Cloud Sprawl Different?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n One of the main ideas behind cloud computing \u2013 and a differentiator between plain old virtualization and centralization \u2013 is the notion of self-service. In the language of VMware, self-service IaaS might be interpreted as handing out vCenter admin access to everyone in the company. Well, in a sense, cloud computing is kind of like that \u2013 anyone who wants to provision IaaS can go out to AWS and do just that. What\u2019s more? They can request all sorts of things, aside from individual VMs. Entire platform stacks can be provisioned with a few clicks of the mouse. In short, users can provision a lot more resources, spend a lot more money, and cause a lot of problems in the cloud. <\/span><\/p>\n We have seen one of our clients estimate their cloud usage at a certain amount, only to discover that actual usage was over 10 times their original estimate!<\/span><\/p>\n In addition, cloud sprawl can go in different directions than plain old VM sprawl. Since there are different cloud providers out there, the proliferation of <\/span>processes and automation<\/span><\/i> becomes something to watch out for. A process to deal with your internal private cloud may need to be tweaked to deal with AWS. And it may need to be tweaked again to deal with another cloud provider. In the end, you may end up with a different process to deal with each provider (including your own datacenter). That means more processes to audit and bring under compliance. The same goes for tools \u2013 tools that were good for your internal private cloud may be completely worthless for AWS. I\u2019ve already seen some of my clients filling their toolboxes with point solutions that are specific to one cloud provider. So, bottom line is that cloud sprawl has the potential to drag on resources in the following ways:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Download John\u2019s <\/span>ebook<\/span><\/a> \u201cThe Evolution of Your Corporate IT Department\u201d to learn more <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How Can You Deal with Cloud Sprawl?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n One way to deal with cloud sprawl is to apply the same treatment that worked for VM sprawl: limit access to the console, and install some tools to identify little-used VMs. At GreenPages, we don\u2019t think that\u2019s a very realistic option in this day and age. So, we\u2019ve conceptualized two new approaches:<\/span><\/p>\n Both options have been built in to our Cloud Management and a Service (<\/span>CMaaS<\/span><\/a>) platform. I see the options less as an \u201ceither\/or\u201d decision, and more of a progression of maturity within an organization. Begin with Option 2 \u2013 Sync and Discover, and move toward Option 1 \u2013 Request Management.<\/span><\/p>\n As I\u2019ve written before, and I\u2019ll highlight here again, IT service management practices become even more important in cloud. Defining services, using proper configuration management, change management, and financial management is crucial to operating cloud computing in a modern IT environment. The important thing to do now is to automate configuration and change management to prevent impeding the speed and agility that comes with cloud computing. Just how do you automate configuration and change management? I\u2019ll explore that in an upcoming post.<\/span><\/p>\n See both options in action in our upcoming <\/span>webinar<\/span> on cloud brokerage and governance<\/a>. Our CTO Chris Ward will cover:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Register for our upcoming webinar<\/a> being held on May 22nd @ 11:00 am EST. “The Rise of Unauthorized AWS Use. How to Address Risks Created by Shadow IT.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n By John Dixon, Consulting Architect With the acceptance of cloud computing gaining steam, more specific issues related to adoption are emerging. Beyond the big-show topics of self-service, security, and automation, cloud sprawl is one of the specific problems that organizations face when implementing cloud computing. In this post, I’ll take a deep dive into…Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,179,183,524,1551],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-10789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cloud-computing","category-featured","category-hybrid-cloud","category-public-cloud","category-shadow-it","tag-cloud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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