Brandon Butler of CIO walks us through several insights provided by Gartner regarding what to consider when buying Cloud Management software or cloud management platforms (CMPs). Mr. Butler writes, “Managing clouds can be a challenge given that virtual machines and storage are running in two different environments simultaneously. A crowded industry of cloud management platforms (CMPs) has emerged to help,” but as Gartner points out the market is still maturing and products will have their limitations.  Below are some tips and considerations when looking at CMPs:

Infrastructure and software management are not the same.

For many organizations their first entry point into cloud is with software as a service (SaaS). Gartner points out that SaaS may have required some new skills but for the most part a management platform is not needed to use SaaS offerings. Enter infrastructure as a service (IaaS). IaaS is a different ball game and due to its complexity, especially in a hybrid world, Gartner recommends using a dedicated cloud management software.

There are two types of cloud management tools (basically!).

When it comes to cloud management, at a high level, there are two options – native tools and third-party tools. Each major cloud vendor has its own set of management and monitoring tools that work within their own cloud platforms. There are also third-party vendors offering their own cloud management platforms that can combine multiple platforms into a single view.  Gartner says there are tradeoffs – native tools may provide deeper functionality for monitoring whereas third-party tools can provide more flexibility. The bottom line is to understand your organization’s needs and choose the platform that will work best.

Third-party cloud management platforms specialize.

When it comes to third-party CMPs, they usually specialize in one of the follow areas:

• Cloud management and brokerage of services
• Expense management
• Operational monitoring
• Governance

As the market continues to mature Gartner expects third-party providers will expand their platform functionality as well.

Cloud monitoring and management has become an important part of successful cloud use. Even as the CMP market continues to change and expand, what is most important is to first understand your needs and then determine which cloud management tool fits best.

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