Cloud Business

Cloud Business Featured Article

Apptio Expands Position in Cloud Business Management Space with Apptio Cloud Express

Cloud-based business applications are growing in popularity. This growth has resulted in a demand for cloud business management services that allow tracking the usage and costs of public cloud services.

Apptio, a provider of on-demand Technology Business Management (TBM) services, is addressing this demand from the industry with its new offering called Apptio Cloud Express. Apptio Cloud Express is a free service designed to help businesses draw the best from their cloud –based business applications. It allows them to track the usage and costs of public cloud services including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Windows Azure, and Rackspace (News - Alert).

Apptio Cloud Express is developed using the expertise of the recently acquired Raveld, a Seattle-based company providing software to help companies more effectively measure and optimize the cost and performance of public cloud computing services, the company said.

The service aggregates the data and provides businesses with the insight to optimize usage and reduce costs. The new offering is expected to improve Apptio's leadership in technology business management, according to company officials.

James Staten, VP and principal analyst at Forrester (News - Alert) Research, recently stated that blindly buying cloud business services and expecting substantial savings is a recipe for disaster. According to Staten, understanding the business model behind the application is how you know whether cloud economics are simply a cost savings tool.

In order to maximize value to business from cloud, IT must collaboratively make data-driven decisions about which products and services should be kept in-house or moved to the cloud, along with which cloud model is right for each initiative.

Apptio Cloud Express allows users to view their cloud costs in an itemized bill format, identify and aggregate spending outside of IT's approval, and perform "what-if" analyses to quantify potential savings of shifting to private or hybrid cloud strategies, company officials said.

For example, Park Nicolett Healthcare, a customer of Apptio, uses the cloud business solution to rapidly model and understand the cost and performance impact of their cloud projects. This helps the company partner more closely with business affiliates.

"Apptio powers some of the world's largest and most innovative IT departments," said Sunny Gupta, CEO at Apptio, in a statement. "We've captured the emerging best practices for analyzing costs and performance across different types of cloud scenarios, and made that information broadly available to our customers. Now, IT leaders can spend less time manually validating data and more time confidently providing answers."

 Want to learn more about cloud computing solutions geared specifically towards small to medium-sized businesses?  Don’t miss the Cloud4SMB Expo, collocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at Cloud4SMB Expo. Follow us on Twitter.