KPIs to Measure Your Cloud Success
With cloud adoption reaching mainstream, migrating to the cloud can deliver major benefits for all organizations irrespective of their field. However, one of the important factor when it comes to ensuring optimum ROI, is choosing the correct success metrics. Without the proper success metrics even the most hardened MSPs can fall into the illusions of false sense of profits. Changing market scenarios require flexible and variable KPIs, whereas most MSPs focus on outdated KPIs.
Instead of traditional project-based KPIs, MSPs need to divert their focus toward cloud-first managed service KPIs to ensure real success in the current market. KPIs allow senior management and IT heads to make decisions based on valuable insights based on the performance of their cloud journey instead of making assumptions. Although KPIs are generally custom-tailored for the specific organizations, there are a few generic KPIs that can help organization get the most from their cloud. In this article, we’ll be discussing some of these KPIs.
Various Types of KPIs to Keep in Mind
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During Migration
- Time Period
- Disruption
- Migration Cost
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After Migration
- Infrastructure
- Performance
- Optimization/Cost Allocation
- Governance and Reporting
Found some KPIs in the list that resonate with your cloud migration journey? Let’s understand these pointers in a bit more detail:
During Migration KPIs
There are loads of KPIs to measure your success on the cloud but the first stage is always the migration. Irrespective of the size of the organization, migration KPIs provide various information such as the time taken for migration, all possible disruptions, migration cost, and many more depending upon the organization. Tracking all possible KPIs can be a painstaking process, hence we’ll be discussing the most prominent ones.
Time Period
It’s important to understand how long each phase of migration are taking place in. Migration, in itself, is a long and complex process that if not kept in check, can quickly spiral into an never ending process. Keeping the migration time in check, you can also keep your migration costs in check. Operational metrics are used to ensure realistic time frames to highlight tactics and data points to help make the right decision. The right pointers:
1. Time spent on a single process.
2. Difference in time of two migration phases.
3. Generic time taken for each stage of migration.
Disruption
Migration from an on-prem system to the cloud is a daunting task in itself. A task that calls on even the veterans of the industry to rethink their strategies, its normal for any organization to get second thoughts about starting such a task. However, such hesitations can often lead to disruptions in the business-aspect of the organization. Without proper processes in place, organizations might face in day-to-day operations due to delays caused in the cloud migration process. Some pointers:
1. Availability of services in the event of disruption
2. Performance optimization
3. Number of potential downtimes
Migration Cost
Often considered the most important factor while migrating, the chunk of budget required to migrate the cloud can sometimes exceed the expectations many-fold. It’s a general rule to under the time and cost it’d take to ensure proper migration to the cloud without any delays. Organizations need to understand the nitty-gritty of migration to the miniscule level to ensure no unexpected worries.
Some important points to factor in:
1. Expected cost to migrate
2. Expenditure planning
3. Overseeing the migration process
Post-Migration
After the migration is done, comes the stage of maintaining your cloud infrastructure to not only maintain your workloads but profit from cloud in the process. An unoptimized or poorly maintained cloud infrastructure can lead to much higher bills than on-prem infrastructures. Any failures in maintaining the cloud can lead to a plethora of problems down the line. For the next stages, Centilytics can ensure you cover all the basics and plug all the loopholes and never worry about the cloud anymore. Let’s discuss a few KPIs to keep in mind after the migration and how Centilytics can help you with the same:
Infrastructure
Cloud infrastructure is a complex undertaking that calls on experts for not only migrating but also maintaining. These KPIs allow users to measure their hardware, network, memory usages, and many more. An intelligent Cloud Management Platform like Centilytics can help users understand their KPIs. A few KPIs:
CPU Usage
Load Balancing
Network Usage
Performance
Performance indicators help users understand the crucial information pertaining to whether their migration has been successful or not. Reduced performance is generally a result of orphaned resources deployed in your workload and can often lead to downtimes leading to business-threatening losses. A few KPIs to ensure improved performance:
Latency
Availability
Error Rates
Optimization/Cost Allocation
Finding ways to become more efficient is a continuous process without resulting in any reduction in the functionality, speed, performance, or any such factor. Being the most cited reason for migration to the cloud, it is imperative for organizations to achieve a superior ROI with their cloud workloads. Senior management needs to understand all the nitty-gritties of the process to make an informed decision and decide whether cloud migration was worthwhile or not. A few KPIs to look out for:
On-Demand Resources
Total Savings
Security Lapses
Underutilized Resources
Governance and Reporting
Centilytics acts as a watchdog for a cloud infrastructure that works even in the absence of human input. The user can set some default criteria based on their usage, cost, security applications, any many more. In the absence of a good cloud governance, it becomes extremely difficult to keep track of all the resources and workloads deployed in the cloud. Along the same lines, generation reports is not the end of the herculean task, the reports should be sent to the relevant users through relevant channels for complete ease of access. Here are a few example KPIs:
Cost Optimized
Automation
Resolving Security Violations
No matter the stage you are for adoption of cloud, it becomes imperative to think about KPIs whether they are your cloud or business goals. Ideally, KPIs should be introduced in the beginning to track your progress during the process. As mentioned in the article above, migration to the cloud is just the mere beginning of a long and complex journey. Having an intelligent ally such as Centilytics can turn the journey into a smooth breeze.