Many hybrid cloud management platform options are available, so selecting the right software for an enterprise can be a challenge. Features available and the need for professional services can greatly vary from one cloud management platform vendor to another. The right platform can act as the single interface to all of IT – and can become the way IT consumes the cloud.
First, it’s important to define what is a cloud management platform? According to Gartner, they are integrated products that provide for the management of public, private and hybrid cloud environments. Minimum requirements for a product to be included in this category include:
- Incorporate self-service interfaces
- Provision system images
- Enable metering and billing
- Provide for some degree of workload optimization through established policies
Additionally, advanced offerings may include the ability to:
- Integrate with external enterprise management systems
- Include service catalogs
- Support the configuration of storage and network resources
- Allow for enhanced resource management via service governors
- Provide advanced monitoring for improved “guest” performance and availability
Cloudbolt is a leading hybrid cloud management platform that helps enterprise IT with their multi-cloud deployments. It provides multi-cloud or hybrid cloud delivery from under a single pane of glass. As a result, enterprise architects get cost transparency, optimization, capacity, and resource planning in one place, saving time, and letting IT staff focus on moving the business forward. Meanwhile, end-users get self-service IT, enabling them to have what they need, when they want it.
Benefits for the End-User
Modernized systems for managing data are systems that move from mainframe to the cloud and server virtualization to the cloud. There are multiple clouds out there including Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), who was first to market and has a stronghold, as well as Oracle, OpenStack and more. Each of the public clouds has their own tools for managing their products, and some are more advanced than others. To make matters more difficult, each of these clouds has their own naming conventions and ways of doing things, which can make using multiple clouds a tremendous challenge for a large organization with many end-users. An even greater problem arises with moving to the cloud arises when users want to use both private clouds and public clouds at the same time.
Complexity involving security, agility, and vendor lock-in comes into play. A full-featured hybrid cloud management platform helps remedy these issues by bringing both internal and external clouds into one secure user-facing application. A user can then access the cloud environments the system administrator has given them access to, without worrying about vendor-lock-in limitations, or having to learn new vendor-specific user interfaces or terminology.
What CloudBolt’s Hybrid Cloud Management Platform Does for the IT Engineer
One phrase that excites any IT Engineer or System Engineer is “easy provisioning.” This is one area where CloudBolt is several steps ahead of other cloud management platforms because it allows you to know all of the cloud systems being used and their users.
It also gives you tools that trigger permissions based on groups, costs, and services. You no longer need to go through a cumbersome approval process that can affect productivity within a company. What makes CloudBolt’s hybrid cloud management platform unique, is that it prevents users from over-provisioning resources.
The CloudBolt hybrid cloud management platform saves you time because it allows you to install, connect and provision quickly. With other cloud management platforms, the process can take weeks to complete. We like to say deploy CloudBolt with your morning coffee, and be up and running by lunchtime! We even offer a free 25 server license, with no commitment required, so you can try Cloudbolt in your own environment.
With Cloudbolt you can say goodbye to shadow IT because you’re giving users an easy way to create their own servers on unsecured public clouds.
Drive Business Value
Organizations need to drive more business value from IT, and where a number of years ago cost or budget wasn’t as much of an issue for IT, today’s business model is looking to be cost-efficient in every department…thus cutting your budget, or getting more out of your budget spend is something your CFO and CIO are probably asking of your department. Cost-savings is another way CloudBolt’s hybrid cloud management platform can help you. It provides cost savings by allowing IT Engineers to turn off servers not being used with power scheduling. Apart from that, customers do not need expensive professional services to use CloudBolt because they can quickly set up the tool on their own and it will be up and running in no time.
Cloudbolt is a hybrid management platform that helps you support the digital transformation required by your business. It helps lower operational costs while also saving you time by allowing you to manage all of your environments from one central place. Contact us today for more information and let us show you how we make the benefits of hybrid cloud a reality.
Get a cloud management platform comparison when you download the CloudBolt Snapshot or check out the CloudBolt Solution Overview for more information.