Data analytics is more relevant in today’s business than ever. Ever more organisations are looking to flexible and adaptive cloud-based platforms, such as Azure. To deliver services for analysing data based on agility, supporting rapid change and alongside this the use of Machine Learning and AI, with increasing levels of demand.

Whilst this has seen many organisations see a significant reduction in their capital expenditure for the delivery of such a platform. Do you have predicable and controlled operational expenditure for your consumption?

A black-box or just a financial black-hole?

Microsoft for example provide some excellent calculators to determine the scale and cost of its Azure services. This should ensure that none of this is a black-box or even a black-hole. However, your platform is unlikely to be static and may consist of multiple services with differing consumption drivers, whether that is uptime, data volumes, processing time or combinations thereof.

In addition, your approach to delivery will have changed. No longer will a repurposed server with developer edition software be enough to provide potential delivery environments. And what is the impact of testing data process flows, backloading data or leaving processing running over the weekend to hit deadlines on your consumption?

Is there a one size fits all fix?

Realistically there isn’t a one size fits all answer to capacity optimisation and consumption control, without constraining the potential of your organisation’s data. Within the Telefónica Tech Managed Service we place a robust focus on Efficient Processes, Effective Governance and Impactful Monitoring.

• Efficient Processes, is based on our extensive experience of delivering and operating data analytics platforms, recognising that some of the ways of working may need to change within a consumption-based environment. Ideally this element of the service commences before the first Azure service is provisioned for development, and appropriate processes are established right from the start, such as Azure runbooks and monitoring, but it is never too late. We can provide recommendations on approaches to delivery with consumption in mind, data management and archiving strategies and change management processes to provide control without losing agility.
• Effective Governance ensures that most basic factors of Azure consumption are controlled across all environments. With consideration of who, when and where (in terms of environments) services are provisioned, turned on, scaled up or hit hard. And more critically to ensure they are withdrawn, turned off, scaled down or proactively balanced.
• Impactful Monitoring responds to the reality of the platform, as data volumes and user demands change. Acting on fact from monitoring provided by Azure, the Telefónica Tech Delivery Framework and optional 3^rd party providers, ensures data processes are optimised, capacity headroom is adjusted up or down, usage analysed, and redundant components decommissioned. As well as identifying trends to understand the impact of necessary or expected changes.

As a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, we can also directly provision your Azure subscription with an approach to assuring the Azure consumption and costs.

If you’d like to understand more about the Telefónica Tech approach, and how our specialist Data Analytics Platform and AI Managed Service can help you stay in control, get in touch.