In an effort to cut costs and improve productivity, many SMBs and large enterprises have replaced their internal infrastructure with cloud-based deployments. This mass migration to the cloud has created near limitless opportunities for technology providers with experience working in hosted environments.
TMC CEO Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) had a chance to catch up with a number of these specialists at Cloud Expo 2011, which just wrapped up in New York City earlier this month.
Dave Zabrowski, founder and CEO of Cloud Cruiser, spoke to Tehrani about his company's business model and what it can do for organizations that are making their way to the cloud. Roseville, Calif.-based Cloud Cruiser develops optimization and visibility solutions that answer the challenge of managing costs at a granular level across complex cloud environments.
Zabrowski pointed to several benefits of his company's solutions. Cloud Cruiser provides clients with accountability, transparency and visibility over their cloud deployments, enabling companies to indentify costs in near real time, says Zabrowski. In addition, these solutions provide business intelligence tools that make it possible for people with personal clouds to make decisions themselves, rather than being forced to rely on IT departments.
Finally, Cloud Cruiser enables customers to be proactive about their cloud-related costs. “Things like budgets, alerts and being able to forecast your consumption,” said Zabrowski. “We are really trying to bring a sense of predictability and control to those costs that were formally inside your four walls and are now moving out into the cloud.”
Tehrani was quick to point out that cloud deployments can actually waste companies' money if not executed and managed properly.
Zabrowski said that this is exactly where Cloud Cruiser can help. The company's solutions can enable proactive management of cloud costs by notifying customers when they become inefficient. “We allow users to migrate with confidence,” Zabrowski noted. Without tools like Cloud Cruiser, “the first time you are notified of costs is when you get your bill,” he added.
Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
