Cloud Cost Optimization and Management – Meeting Notes

Overview

• Discussion centers on secure access, environment management, and cost optimization across production and non-production (non-prod) environments. Mention of multiple environments (NaviC, SSH, RDP) and access flow: authenticate to network, then to Jambox, then to type server for NaviC/Jambox access.
• Production environment has a large server footprint; estimated migration scope is >100 servers, mostly VMs, with past services still in use.
• Emphasis on making management traffic come from predictable IPs to enable access lists and tighter control.
• Historical context: James Broktar (left) had begun alignment on several items; action points needed to confirm what was flagged, particularly OS versions.
• Several cost optimization initiatives discussed: decommissioning, rightsizing, PaaS (Azure) optimization, storage cost optimization, and firewall/IDS/IPS POC with associated networking changes.
• Regional coordination required: needs engagement with regional IT teams and TCS (CloudOps) to implement recommendations and refresh reports.
• The conversation references a framework for budgeting and forecasting (PXC/PwC reporting), with a focus on aligning reported potential savings with actual actionable items in regional contexts.
• Roundtable closes with a push to finalize RI (Reserved Instances) planning, including a move from 1-year to 3-year reservations, to improve savings, and to finalize a model showing regional consumption and reservations.

Key concepts and terms (definitions and context)

• IES / IAS: Centrally managed vs. self-managed environments; central management discussed in PWC report figures. The team references IES (likely a specific environment) and the central management model for Azure/PaaS and databases.
• EBAT data platform: A large, heavy-user data platform likely sitting in centrally managed environments; suspected as a major driver of 105k Azure PaaS savings if right-sized or terminated.
• Samurai: A large environment that’s historically centralized; referenced as a likely high-cost, centralized workload.
• Data center licenses vs. Standard: Efforts to remove Enterprise/Datacenter licenses from Windows servers; SQL licenses remain the remaining area to convert to standard licensing.
• PaaS (Azure PaaS): Platform as a Service workloads in Azure, including Azure SQL and other Azure PaaS services; targeted for optimization with potential savings stated at $105{,}000$.
• PWC report: A cost-optimization report that estimates savings in centrally managed environments and Azure PaaS workloads; some optimism vs. reality caveats noted.
• POC (Proof of Concept): IDS/IPS firewall PoC in the Americas; potential production rollout pending approvals and possibly requiring firewall upgrades.
• PXQ model: A cost-tracking or planning model for regional spend and cost optimization; emphasizes reflecting regional changes in future budgets.
• Rightsizing: Adjusting instance sizes to better-fit utilization; a major focus area for both compute and database workloads.
• Auto-off: Automation to power off non-prod or underutilized instances to reduce cost.
• Prism: A planning/optimization approach or tool referenced for reservation planning and cost optimization.
• Reservations: Move from shorter to longer-term commitments (e.g., from 12 months to 36 months) to lock in savings.
• TCS CloudOps: The outsourcing/partner team responsible for cloud operations and optimization activities.
• APAC/EMEA: Regions to be engaged for cost-optimization validation and budgeting.

Major points by topic

1) Security, access, and management posture

• Authentication flow: Network authentication -> Jambox -> type server -> NaviC environment or SSH/RDP access.
• Goal: Ensure management traffic originates from predictable IP addresses to enable strict access-lists.
• Production vs non-prod: Need consistent access-control measures; production requires stricter controls.
• OS version flags: Items flagged for OS versions require action; responsibility lies with the team after James Broktar’s departure.

2) Migration and production environment size

• Production environment has many servers; >100 servers to migrate.
• Mix of VMs and possibly past-services migrating to or being retained in the cloud.
• Emphasis on understanding service roles and management traffic to inform firewall rules and access controls.

3) Cost optimization: decommissioning and rightsizing

• Decommissioning variance: A cost-saving initiative; Steve acknowledged cost savings. Target savings reported: $2.8 ext{k}$ per month, or $35 ext{k}$ per year.
  • $2.8 ext{k} ext{ per month} <br /> ightarrow$2.8 ext{k} imes 12 = 33.6 ext{k}$per year, approximating the reported$35 ext{k}$.</li></ul></li> <li>Action plan: Hydrate numbers with regional IT teams and with TCS; request TCS to begin implementing the recommendations (e.g., Henrik’s flagged items).</li> <li>PwC (PWC) report alignment: Potential savings of$195{,}000$in centrally managed environments; another line shows$105{,}000$potential savings for Azure PaaS, though the latter assumes significant terminations and consolidations.</li> <li>Reality check: Not all savings may be realized; need to review what portion comes from EBAT data platform or Samurai environments, as they are large, centralized workloads.</li> <li>Azure ADP list and DBs: Adam has pulled Azure ADP lists; DBS list referenced. The team will refresh reports to identify large, quick-win items for Azure PaaS and data-platform workloads.</li> <li>Data-platform licensing: Consider moving clustered/multi-DB SQL environments from data center licenses to standard licenses; SQL licensing remains the main barrier for cost savings.</li> <li>Next steps: Adam to refresh Azure PaaS report; identify largest environments for quick wins; engage application/technical owners to confirm requirements or cut if possible.</li> <li>Bob (Bobbry) involvement: Bob is running in-house tooling to analyze database performance and will advise on right-sizing the database layer.</li> <li>Governance on how to respond: For each line in the PwC/PaaS data, regions should confirm Yes/No/Needs Clarification; then update the budgeting sheets.</li> </ul> <h5 id="4paasoptimizationanddataplatforms">4) PaaS optimization and data platforms</h5> <ul> <li>EBAT data platform and Samurai environment are potential major contributors to Azure PaaS spend.</li> <li>Hypothesis: The$105{,}000$Azure PaaS savings may primarily come from terminating or consolidating large EBAT/Samurai workloads.</li> <li>Action: Verify the Azure PaaS list; confirm which workloads are centralized (EBAT, Samurai) and which can be terminated or right-sized.</li> <li>Data-center licensing context: Some data-center workloads migrated to cloud while licensing remained; focus on moving to standard instances for Windows and SQL.</li> <li>Next steps: Refresh report on Azure PaaS instances; find quick wins; contact owners for validation; if a workload must remain, justify capacity and performance needs.</li> </ul> <h5 id="5networkingidsipsandfirewallpoc">5) Networking, IDS/IPS, and firewall PoC</h5> <ul> <li>IDS/IPS PoC in Americas: POC run done; awaiting approval from James from America to proceed (likely as Americas-first deployment).</li> <li>Firewall changes: If PoC proceeds, some firewall upgrades may be required; clarify whether new firewall hardware is needed or if upgrades suffice.</li> <li>PXQ model: Any firewall/network changes should be reflected in the PXQ budgeting model; snapshots of regional networks were taken in July; Americas may incur major changes.</li> <li>Budget impact: If the PoC goes production in the Americas, budgets should reflect increased costs in that region; costs may be charged directly to sub-subscriptions in each region.</li> <li>Action: Determine what is required from the team’s side for deployment and upgrade, and align with regional budgets.</li> </ul> <h5 id="6storageoptimizationandbackups">6) Storage optimization and backups</h5> <ul> <li>Storage cost optimization ongoing with the CloudOps team (TCS): trimming redemption policies and cutting backups in non-prod environments where feasible.</li> <li>Observed trend: Storage savings reported for July and August; the team is tracking a decrease in reported storage savings due to organic growth and new backups.</li> <li>Backup growth: Backups add incremental costs annually; as archives and backups mature, costs rise slightly; expect a yearly increase toward year-end.</li> <li>Auto-off routine: Consider adding automatic power-off for non-prod or unused resources to bolster savings.</li> <li>Traction tracking: Track auto-off adoption, storage reductions, and rightsizing to measure impact.</li> <li>Data points noted: In August, RI (Reserved Instances) adjustments show a drop of about$9$per month in the reports; a more detailed modeling is needed to reconcile this with subscription-level changes.</li> <li>Regional collaboration: Track back with regional teams to ensure backups are trimmed consistently; confirm whether some workloads can be entirely removed from backups.</li> <li>Prism and long-term reservations: Discuss moving from year-long reservations to 3-year reservations to improve savings; use Prism or a similar model to plan optimal reservation mix.</li> </ul> <h5 id="7reservationsriplanningandregionalbudgeting">7) Reservations, RI planning, and regional budgeting</h5> <ul> <li>RI refresh work: A person is building a high-level budget view by region/subscription to determine whether to keep, resize, or terminate reservations. The goal is to show a clear path to 26<li>Proposed shift: Move from one-year commitments to three-year commitments to improve savings and align with long-term capacity planning.</li> <li>Challenges: Complex script logic to map reservation sizes to actual workloads; need to balance risk (underutilized reservations) with potential savings.</li> <li>Timeline: Begin with a quick, regional, high-level view to guide budgets for 2020/2021 planning; implement earlier rather than later to manage risk.</li> <li>Next steps: Share initial views with colleagues to review reservation sizing and update the budget sheets accordingly.</li> </ul> <h5 id="8regionalcoordinationandresponsibilities">8) Regional coordination and responsibilities</h5> <ul> <li>Regions involved: APAC, EMEA; need to coordinate with regional IT teams and TCS for actioning recommendations and reporting.</li> <li>Communication cadence: Weekly calls with regional teams; track traction on auto-off, storage, and rightsizing.</li> <li>Ownership: Identify application owners/technical owners for Azure PaaS workloads; obtain confirmation on requirements or permission to terminate/scale down.</li> </ul> <h5 id="9roundtablecurrentstatusandongoingconcerns">9) Roundtable: current status and ongoing concerns</h5> <ul> <li>RI work in progress: One participant is close to finalizing a view of RI allocations by family size, region, and subscription; aiming to understand 20-30<li>Forecasting adjustments: Expect a drop in savings when workloads move to power-off or are decommissioned; also expect savings to adjust as new workloads are introduced or re-sized.</li> <li>The script challenge: Balancing reservations across multiple D-series or compute families; the process is complex due to how reservations are provisioned versus how compute is consumed across regions.</li> <li>Unified compute across three regions: Acknowledge that compute is now unified across regions, enabling better cost efficiency and easier rightsizing.</li> <li>Early actions: Request early view of RI planning to begin optimizing reservations sooner rather than later.</li> </ul> <h4 id="numericalreferencesandformulaslatex">Numerical references and formulas (LaTeX)</h4> <ul> <li>Monthly decommissioning savings:$2.8 ext{k} ext{ per month}$</li> <li>Annualized decommissioning savings:$2.8 ext{k} imes 12 = 33.6 ext{k} ext{ per year} ext{(approximately }35 ext{k} ext{ per year reported)}$</li> <li>Centralized savings (PwC):$195{,}000$</li> <li>Azure PaaS savings (PwC):$105{,}000$</li> <li>Target reservation savings reference:$26 ext{ ext{%}}$(as cited in planning discussions)</li> <li>Reservation horizon proposal:$12 ext{ months}
    ightarrow 36 ext{ months}$$
  • Storage/funding notes: Regional budgets will reflect costs directly charged to sub-subscriptions in each region; alignment across APAC/EMEA is needed

  Action items (summary)

  • Clarify OS-version flags and ownership for items flagged after James Broktar’s departure; assign responsible owner.
  • Update Azure PaaS inventory; Adam to refresh Azure PaaS report; identify EBAT/Samurai workloads for potential right-sizing or termination.
  • Engage with Paprika/Merkel contact (database team) to verify DB license status and potential consolidation to standard licenses; confirm DBA (DBS) list and responsibilities.
  • Validate POC roadmap for IDS/IPS firewall in Americas; determine deployment scope and required firewall upgrades or replacements.
  • Hydrate PwC regional figures with regional IT and TCS inputs; update the PWC-based cost-savings estimates by region.
  • Develop a regional RI plan: build an initial view of family sizes and 3-year reservation opportunities; map to budget lines and share for review.
  • Implement storage optimization actions: extend auto-off routines; trim backups for non-prod environments where feasible; track monthly savings and update baselines.
  • Align regional budgeting with PXQ model: reflect expected costs for changes in Americas; ensure regional teams budget for potential spikes.
  • Schedule follow-up on license reallocation from Data Center to Standard for Windows servers; track SQL licensing separately.
  • Maintain ongoing right-sizing efforts (compute and databases) with Bob (Bobbry) and regional owners; report progress in weekly calls.
  • Prepare a consolidated, regional cost-optimization dashboard: RI status, right-sizing, decommissioning, and storage, with Yes/No/Needs Clarification for PwC lines.

  Notes on sentiment and risk

  • Optimism about potential savings exists but requires careful validation against actual workload footprints and regional approvals.
  • Some initiatives (like POC deployment in Americas) depend on approvals and concrete changes to security infrastructure; delays could shift timelines and budgets.
  • The team recognizes the complexity of reservations planning across multiple regions and compute families; a rigorous, data-driven approach is essential to avoid over-committing or under-committing resources.

  References to people and roles (contextual)

  • James Broktar: Previously involved in alignment; left the team; action items depend on what he flagged.
  • James Procter: Mentioned as the correct James in some parts; not to be confused with James Norris.
  • Henrik: Flagged some recommendations for action.
  • Adam: Pulled Azure ADP lists; to refresh Azure PaaS report.
  • Bob/Bobbry: Runs internal tooling to analyze database performance for right-sizing.
  • Paprika: A contact from Merkel group referenced in discussions about data center and licensing.
  • Callers/regions: APAC, EMEA, Americas; regional IT teams and TCS CloudOps to be engaged for execution and budgeting.

  Summary takeaway

  • The team is actively pursuing a multi-pronged cost-optimization program spanning decommissioning, rightsizing, storage optimization, and reservation planning, with a strong emphasis on regional alignment and governance. There is a clear pathway to significant savings, but realization depends on timely validation with regional owners, accurate inventory of large workloads (EBAT/Samurai), and concrete changes in regional budgets and subscriptions. The next steps are to refresh key reports, confirm ownership, implement quick wins, and finalize RI planning to enable more aggressive long-term savings.