Reaching out to my fellow Apptio Peeps to get some fresh insight.

Now that we have implemented Apptio, it is apparent to management that some of our costs are out of control all across the Towers.  From merging similar software subscription accounts to reclaiming servers, we are doing what we can to save cost.

Just wondering what projects some of you all have completed that saw some material IT savings.

Thank you in advance for your help,

Neda T.

My advice would be to keep a very close eye on your cloud costs. While it seems like an appealing option from a cost standpoint at first glance, cloud spend can quickly grow way beyond what was expected, if you're not careful and don't proactively manage it very carefully. If you ever hear a member of your IT leadership team say that cloud is "significantly cheaper"—or even worse, "almost free"—then get on that leader's calendar ASAP! They're saying those things, because they have not been presented with all the important information regarding cloud.

Yes, that is one area that we're attacking.  You're right...people spin-up servers because it's easy.  Next thing you know, the monthly bill is outrageous.  Thank you so much!

Spot on @Jonathan Cutting!

I was witness to one IT group blowing through their full-year Cloud budget within one quarter. OUCH! 

What some don't realize is the infrastructure typically replaced with CapEx dollars is now being replaced with Cloud instances using OpEx dollars. If the retiring infrastructure assets are not decommissioned and remaining depreciation, if any, cleared off, the affect onto OpEx can get very crazy!

It's very easy to spin up Cloud without proper governance and structure that it gets out of hand VERY quick. Another gotcha is ensuring proper attribution of the Cloud instances, RIs, accounts, and more to enable relationships to applications, environments, cost centers, etc.

If your on-prem shop has a lot of the infrastructure mapped to "stuff" (eg apps et al) and making a mad dash to Cloud, you might find yourself in for a VERY rude awakening to learn Cloud instances were spun up without similar mappings. UGH!

If Cloud was spun up for days (plural) without any mappings and clocking in at a lot of cost per day, IT leaders will find themselves very challenged to identify which Cloud instances can be re-balanced, turned off at set times, supplemented with an RI purchase strategy, etc without affecting service to clients or even which clients to partner with to resolve.

Cloud has tremendous benefit, but great reward only comes with great responsibility. 

Soooo true!!!!! :-o

As @Jonathan Cutting pointed out, cloud is a hot one.

Have you checked out the reports which you can create from the Insight Cookbooks?  To name a few that can help shed some lights quickly -- Zombie Servers (No App Relationship), Underutilized SaaS Licenses and Mobile Bill Overcharges. I find these 3 areas are mostly overlooked by IT groups and can be quick hits for costs savings.

What's the Insight Cookbook? 

My apologies, @Mark Salib. I should have included the link -- Insights Cookbook. These are templates contributors from the TBM Community came up with to put reports for TBM insights. Hope you will find it useful.

Completely agree with @Jonathan Cutting and @Tony Wong on Cloud - there are lots of opportunities to optimise here e.g. right sizing the instance, ensuring auto pause is enabled for non-prod instances, having the right mix of on-demand / reserved / spot instances.

We've had some success looking at end user devices e.g. people with multiple laptops (often sitting in a locker/cupboard somewhere), people with desk phones and mobile phones, people with licenses for applications they no longer require.

In all cases, utilisation data is key - being able to see when a laptop was last connected to the network or how often a user accesses and application helps drive that saving initiative.

Vendor Contracts

Mobile Utilization

Labor Utilization/Output

Hi @Neda Traycoff, Follow what @Mark Salib, @Tony Wong & others have said. 

However, if you are someone who is heavy on-prem services, than there are several places to look for opportunities, something that we gained significant benefit from. If you are looking for on-prem opportunities, let me know. 

Regards

Suresh

Suresh, would love to hear those!

Hi Jenny,

We started of with the most obvious ones. I have listed below but we are proud of Opportunity No. 3 as it took us some science to come up with the logic around it and the way reporting needs to be done. 

Opportunity 1 – Storage Optimization

oMoving data from high tier storage to lower one to reduce cost without performance impact.

Opportunity 2 – Server Optimization and Recovery

oServer optimization by class downgrade and/or recovery of servers through consolidation.

Opportunity 3 – Storage Recovery

oRelease excess storage allocated to databases.

I will try to put up detailed information on the opportunities including Opportunity 3 for guidance.