Five priorities for
Hybrid IT cost
optimization
StartHybrid IT Economics:
Only spend on what makes
your business more agile
Cloud has been around a long time. Cloud-firststrategies are the new normal. So normal that
there are few arguments against migrating to
the cloud. But there’s a trap. The cloud is easy tojustify on many levels, especially business agility,
faster innovation, the ability to enable and secure
remote and hybrid working and, of course, saving
costs by moving from a capex focused techbudget to an opex one which allows the enterprise
to make the most of the latest technologies,applications, and innovations (emerging formsof AI and even quantum-inspired computing).
That’s the upside, the downside is that many
enterprises find it hard to deliver the promise oflower costs. That’s why a planned and realistic
approach to cost optimization is so important. It’s
clear that, for all the fine words some CIOs use
to describe their cloud strategy, one of the main1

reasons they are migrating all or some of theirservices to the cloud is the ability it gives themto reduce costs. Their budgets are under stress,they’re worried about what Gartner calls ‘technicaland organizational debt.’1 Migration doesn’t makethat go away. In fact, it can make it worse.
So, the migration, in itself, is not the solution or
end of the matter. Yes, you will make headline
savings, but there are also new costs to consider.
One of the big trends for 2022 and beyond isto implement Hybrid IT and cloud in a way thatdelivers ongoing cost optimization benefits bothinternally and externally. It’s a process, a plan, anda method of leveraging the benefits of cloud.
You need to ask yourself some key questions toset your cloud strategy for 2022 and deliver cost
optimization that shows up on the bottom line.

https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3989188/manage-technology-debt-to-create-technology-wealthContents
Action 1:
Yield the benefits of ‘great digital acceleration’

Action 2:
Do more with cloud!

Action 3:
Drive your move from capex to opex faster

Action 4:
Act quickly, but think long-term

Action 5:
Choose the right partner to optimize cost
while boosting agility

Summary:
Fujitsu is your ideal Hybrid IT and cloud cost
optimization partnerAction 1: Yield the benefits of‘great digital acceleration’
The biggest challenge for 2022 and2023 is to make the most of what canbe called ‘the great digital acceleration’
sparked by the pandemic. The OECD ran
a forum at the end of 20202 which clearly
defined what many commentators had
begun to describe; the rapid deploymentof digital tools which enabledorganizations in all sectors to not only
cope with the demands, but also enable
us all to redefine the way we interactedwith the world via digital tools.
The cloud played a vital part in
keeping the world running. But manyorganizations had to move so fast thatcost wasn’t a top priority. Protecting
the business was top of the agenda.
Now, it’s time to step back and takestock of what you have, what you need,

2and how you can use Hybrid IT andcloud to optimize costs as well as deliver
greater agility and resilience. That means
it’s important to refactor the ‘temporary’solutions introduced in haste.
You’re in the cloud for the long term.
That much is clear. Now is the time tomake the most of an opportunity whichis, by definition, a unique one. The pastevents concentrated minds on survival,
then enabled businesses to pivot andfocus on innovation as well as customers’
demands, and now we all have thechance to refine cloud strategies sothat they yield tangible benefits interms of cost and value for money.

https://www.oecd-forum.org/rooms/covid-19-the-great-digital-acceleration/conversations

Action 2: Do more with cloud
Cloud delivers cost optimization when you
do more with it and do it intelligently. There
has been a perception that just moving to thecloud cuts costs. It doesn’t. More often thannot, when you migrate like-for-like process andapplications you end up paying the same as you
did before. And some find that their costs rise.
There needs to be a planned and strategic
approach to orchestration and re-platformingthat’s predicated on specific cost centers suchas the costs of managing infrastructure andplatforms which are on-premise. The time ittakes your people to manage and look after
the engineering side of internal technologies
is significant. That’s a financial cost as well
as a cost in terms of time and ef fort. Yourpeople are focused on business as usual
rather than streamlining the business, serving
employees and customers with what theyneed, and driving new product innovation.

Don’t just lift and shift; identify what works
and what doesn’t and base your migration onwhat the business needs over the long-term as
well as the next financial quarter. Cost savings
might not be immediate, but they will come.
And crude savings aren’t the point. If you canboost innovation, then costs are optimized not
because they fall but because they yield higher
revenues into the business through innovation.
The point is: do more with the cloudand you will get greater value fromyour investment through a more agile,
energized, and innovative business.

Action 3:
Drive your movefrom capex toopex fasterThe bottom-line (forgive the pun) is that you only
use what you need when you need it and never pay
for what you don’t need. And that goes for storageas well as computing. You need to choose the rightstorage tier based on data importance, frequencyof access, and your specific business resiliency
requirements. You can use automatic tiering to shift
between levels of storage to achieve optimal costs.
Again, it’s about not paying for storage you don’tneed. There are no empty tiers costing you money.

2022 is an opportunity to consolidate the movefrom capex to opex and yield the cost benefits
which have long been mooted but are sometimes
hard to see on the balance sheet. That takes, as
I’ve already stressed, good planning. So, if you’removing to Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or
utilizing Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) then you
need to have the ability to right size your cloudcomputing instances, so that you achieve theperformance you need at the right cost.

Another crucial operational element is to clearly
define what is normal and abnormal for yourcloud resources rather than utilising legacy,
on-premise metrics for defining a problem. It’s
common for organizations to define the same
capacity thresholds in the cloud as on-premise,for example, a trigger set for 90% CPU usage willraise an incident alert. That’s a mistake. You should
aim to run resources near maximum capacity,
avoiding unnecessary cost with over provisioning.

Match the needs of the business to what you’repaying for. At the same time, ensure that you
can spin up capacity (and spin it down) basedon the changing needs of the enterprise. That
requires good auto-scaling so that your cloudcapacity has the right elasticity: it stretches as
demand grows, and then rebounds when it falls.

Shifting to the cloud enables you to adopt dynamic
monitoring, a method for learning what is normal foryour environment and identifying when somethingabnormal occurs. The levels at which an alert
is triggered are not arbitrary or fixed.
They flex with the way the business isworking – and need to work basedon the demands of the market etc. – so that you,or the team working for your cloud partner, are notspending valuable (costly) time dealing with alerts.
Only those that really matter will get attention.
You can also rearchitect and refactor applications
to ensure that applications are using resources
more ef ficiently. That’s especially pertinent toleveraging the benefits of PaaS and Software-as-aService (SaaS) options. The point is to migrate withrefactoring not just ‘lift & shift’ services to the cloud.
Automation is, increasingly, being used toreduce the amount of human input into notjust monitoring the ef ficient allocation ofinstances, but also dealing with auto-scaling,and responding to alerts. So, it pays to see how
automation can contribute to reducing thecosts associated with your cloud presence.

Action 4:
Act quickly, but
think long-term
The temptation to go for quick fixes in a fastmoving environment is hard to avoid, but you
can achieve immediate cost optimization while
ensuring that you keep costs under control
over the long-term. Making the most of cloudnative and third-party tools to forecast costs
and anticipate future capacity (using accurate
historical usage data) will enable you to make thebest decisions about what you need to invest innow, what you can plan to invest in the future, andwhat you don’t need to spend money on at all.
Most importantly, you need to right size. That means
you reserve the cloud computing (that’s containers,VMs, and other resources) with the right quantityof resources (RAM, CPU, storage, network etc.) toget the performance your business needs rightnow. The principle must be to only spend what you

need to in the short-term and have the freedom toincrease or decrease as demand changes. Simply,
your cloud computing is ‘the right size’ for what
you want to do now. You only pay what you needto pay. That goes for reserving instances (or spotinstances) too. Automation can help you do thisaccurately and with the least human (costly) input.
Accurate and timely right-sizing only saves you
money if, while you’re minimizing resource usage, you
don’t then impact other business critical functions.
That can generate knock-on cost if some areas of thebusiness experience resource issues or downtime.
As the saying suggests, right-sizing is a process. It’s averb, not a noun. You could call it a balancing act thatneeds to be done intelligently. Where appropriate,significant cost savings can be achieved by leveraging
your existing on-premises licenses for your cloud
resources. For example, Microsoft of fers the Azure
Hybrid Benefit to help customers significantly reduce
their cloud costs. With right-sizing, reserved instancesand licensing benefits, I’ve seen customers save up
to 85%. Again, it’s acting quick and smart with an eye
on the long-term. Embed cost optimizing practices
and process at the heart of your cloud strategy
and you will see the benefits on the bottom line.

Action 5: Choose the right partner to
optimize cost while boosting agility
The mantra for 2022 and beyond must be: drive
costs down while driving agility up. A narrow focus
on cost reduction, as I’ve said, can harm your ability
to innovate and grow your business. You need tohave total visibility of what your existing technology
investments and resources are contributing tothe health of the enterprise. Fujitsu works withcustomers to see exactly what they’re paying
for in terms of resources and technologies, andbalance that making the most of what is needed todeliver specific objectives. Short- and long-term.
We make sure that your migration matches
the needs of your people, customers, and all
stakeholders on a business level. Our focus is notnarrowly technological: it’s about delivering an
ef fective strategy which cannot be measured
solely in costs saved. The business must be betterfor its cloud migration, not merely dif ferent. Weof fer multiple Managed Service options which
can be priced based on the type and volume ofcloud resources you consume or as a percentage
uplift of your cloud spend. The point is tomatch the service to the vision. Your vision.

Our global of ferings are standardized and can bedelivered anywhere they are needed via our Global
Delivery Centers or Regional Delivery Centers.
We of fer specific advice and practical services
to ensure that whichever platform you use will
deliver the right capacity at the right cost (andright size). So, all instances, resource usage, andalert monitoring will match each configuration.
We will architect (and rearchitect / refactor) as
circumstances demand, and can move applications,
resources, and storage to whichever as-a-service
approach suits your best (DBaaS / PaaS etc.)
Finally, we will make sure you pay the right pricefor the right cloud platform and cloud-based
applications. We’ll recommend ways to make themost of your budget, for instance, moving to a
cloud native deployment with infrastructure ascode or advise that you move from one cloudprovider to another to achieve optimal pricing.

Summary: Fujitsu is yourideal Hybrid IT and cloud
cost optimization partner
We have the experience, global reach, and cloud expertise todeliver the right cloud at the right cost. Now and into the future.
2022 will be a critical year for ensuring that you get the balance
between agility and cost right. The pandemic accelerated thedigital age and saw a rush to the cloud. The point now is toensure that speed does not result in waste as well as haste.

The five things you should
think about doing now are:
1. Assess you current migration. Don’t just ‘lift & shift’
work with a partner to re-platform, refactor, orrearchitect your cloud plans so that you get all
the benefits – agility + cost efficiency
2. Continue to optimize throughout your cloud migrationand ongoing experience and leverage both manualand automated ways of doing so

3. Use reserved and spot instances where possible
and leverage ‘Bring Your Own License’ benefits tomake the most of your existing license arrangements
4. Make the most of automation to right-size yourresources and environments so you get the capacity
and applications you need without paying
for anything you don’t need
5. It’s all about business outcomes NOT technology, sokeep your focus on your vision and objectives to drive
growth and innovation – Hybrid IT and cloud are tools

To find out more about optimizing
costs for your Hybrid IT services visit:https://www2.fujitsu.com/global/uvance/hybrid-it/© FUJITSU 2021. All rights reserved. FUJITSU and FUJITSU logo are trademarks of Fujitsu Limited registered in many jurisdictions
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