Moving workloads into Cloud Computing environments is on everyone’s task list. As one evaluates the choices between public and private cloud, the sizing of an environment quickly comes into view. How large or small should an environment be? Once you get started, how does one “rightsize” their cloud environment? As the cloud based environment, or environments start to grow, sizing them correctly will ensure that performance and financial objectives are kept in check.
Last week at the Under The Radar conference, I had a chance to meet with one company that addresses this need. I met with the Founder and CEO of Cloudyn, Sharon Wagner. Cloudyn’s approach is to evaluate cloud details and provide a set of recommendations. But that is just the start. Cloudyn’s approach is to ingest a number of variables via provider APIs from cost information to performance characteristics. Their solution is able to do this automatically even if negotiated pricing is in play with public cloud providers. The engine ingests cost elements from both public and private clouds. According to Sharon, the SaaS-based solution uses “a predefined algorithm that the user can modify to produce actionable recommendations. The recommendations provide specific details on the action to take and why”. Understanding the reason behind a decision puts users in a better position to make informed decisions. Armed with this information, users can size cloud environments more accurately and manage costs. Cloudyn’s solution takes it a step further to tie business metrics with technical metrics to derive metrics like ‘cost per transaction’.
Taking it a different direction, users can leverage the recommended actions to feed into the orchestration layer of their cloud. While this step may be a bit too automated for some, those with a clear understanding of their workloads and capable of setting boundaries might enjoy this valuable perk.