Five key best practices for AWS cost optimisation – analysed

Keeping cloud costs in check is a struggle. Companies either lose control of their budgets and spend even 23% more than planned or end up overprovisioning their workloads. 

Optimising cloud costs is about striking a healthy balance between price and performance. You want your applications to have enough resources, but at the same time avoid cloud waste. 

Here are five tips to get you started on your AWS cost optimisation journey.

#1: Allocate costs for...

16 April 2021 | AWS

How cloud adoption has become essential to digital transformation

Cloud adoption is now a key framework for the technology that upholds our everyday life, and has evolved into an essential feature for all businesses.

Within the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw a clear focus on crisis management – with organisations desperate to build on their cloud usage and adopt new tech to ensure business continuity. Now, cloud technology is vital to a company’s digital transformation. With the situation in our world continuing for the...

12 April 2021 | Adoption

Google Cloud: Three tech and cloud trends which are fuelling business recovery in 2021

Businesses are at a pivotal moment in time. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that global GDP shrank by 4.4% in 2020, and contraction in the most advanced economies is estimated to be 5.8%. Today, however, vaccine availability and distribution brings us the brightest glimmer of hope yet that slowing the devastation of the virus may be a reality. More effectively addressing the health crisis also means economic recovery is becoming a stronger possibility - if businesses can...

11 March 2021 | Applications

International Women’s Day 2021: On disruption, democratisation, and doing more

The theme of International Women's Day 2021, March 8, is 'choose to challenge.' "A challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change," in the words of the IWD website. "So let's all choose to challenge."

For the adtech industry, the 'choose to challenge' theme was the keynote of a recent excoriating article (warning: NSFW themes) from Amy Kean, author and culture editor at Shots Studios. Kean pointed out that, in spite of the 'good guys' in the industry -...

8 March 2021 | Adoption

Cloud conundrums and legacy systems: Should they stay or should they go?

Survey after survey has shown that IT and business leaders have had to drastically rethink priorities, strategies and spending in the wake of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The survey that our company conducted in October has showed that technology spending hasn’t taken a terrible hit: in fact, 60% of IT leaders report that they have either significantly or moderately increased their IT budgets in the last six months. Other research from 2020 has mirrored those findings.

Yet...

10 December 2020 | Architecture

How SaaS companies can build on their popularity with a good digital marketing strategy

With the Covid-19 pandemic forcing firms to allow more home and remote working, SaaS offerings are seeing large subscription increases. Recent figures reported by market research company Technavio suggests the global SaaS market could grow to over $60 billion in 2023.

So what happens when a working vaccine becomes available - which according to recent media reports is on the horizon - and people can resume their normal working routine at the office? How can SaaS firms ‘seize the...

17 November 2020 | Best Practice

Charting a path toward digital transformation in the face of uncertainty: A guide

Covid-19 has accelerated years-long digital transformation initiatives for enterprise teams into a span of months.

But digital transformation in business today isn’t just about supporting a remote workforce. We can’t continue to rely on in-person engagement for any business processes. Digital-first operations for employees, customers, partners, and suppliers are no longer merely a differentiator; it’s table stakes for surviving during the pandemic economy and...

12 November 2020 | Best Practice

Palo Alto Networks warns of ‘critical’ IAM misconfigurations potentially worth millions

Cloud misconfigurations continue to cause major headaches for organisations - and a recent report from Palo Alto Networks has uncovered an identity and access management (IAM) flaw that could have been worth 'millions.'

The finding appears in the security provider's Cloud Threat Report 2H 2020. The disclosure (28 pages, PDF, email required) came about after the Unit 42 cloud threat intelligence team - the research arm of Palo Alto - was contacted by a customer requesting a test of...

8 October 2020 | AWS

Digital transformation strategies: Should shaken SD-WAN confidence lead to WAN acceleration?

Analysis Before the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown struck, the predictions for software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs) were glowingly positive. A Cato Networks IT survey forecasted strong growth for the technology, as buyers want to replace their multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) with a nimbler and more affordable alternative. However, the survey finds a need to consider the demands of digital transformation, and arguably now the changes in working practices, to avoid undermining...

29 September 2020 | Architecture

Gartner analysis: To face new realities, tech CEOs need to bounce forward

Any crisis is significant, but the impact of a global health crisis affects every part of a business’ operations and its employees. Unlike an economic recession or the disruption created by a new technology, COVID-19 brought an immediate event that changed how we think and work at the most fundamental levels. Today tech CEOs are moving into the second phase of their COVID-19 response – they’ve regained their operational footing and are refocusing on new customer...

28 September 2020 | Best Practice