Cloud Monitoring: Cloud Maintenance 101

Migrating to the cloud delivers immediate benefits. But it also introduces new tasks and processes vital to data security and your bottom line. By developing cloud management strategies, companies can increase uptime while optimizing IT resources. 

Explore four critical areas of cloud maintenance, including potential consequences of not doing it, best practices for cloud monitoring, and how IT managed services can help companies allocate resources.

Scan Systems Regularly

There isn’t a shortage of news reports about data and system breaches. According to McAfee’s latest Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, “The amount of threats from external actors targeting cloud services increased 630%.” To reduce threats, companies create a risk mitigation plan that includes a cloud security strategy. IT teams may complete regular tasks, such as:

• Select and manage extra security features, such as bring your own key (BYOK)
• Complete regular audits to examine, repair, test, track, and capture malicious activity
• Review unauthorized configuration changes, vulnerability, and compliance reports
• Develop robust incident response and reporting plans with periodic testing 
• Check for unknown data streams, tools, and applications 

Enlist Cloud Security Maintenance Tools and Services

Continuous monitoring is essential, but it can eat up valuable resources leading to IT support burnout. Teams can incorporate tools, such as network sniffers and scanning apps, to automate processes. However, companies may benefit from IT managed services.

Managed solutions use proactive monitoring to catch potential vulnerabilities before an incident occurs. Moreover, they handle monitoring and maintenance tasks so your teams can concentrate on business-critical activities. 

Assess Cloud Usage Regularly

Although companies can see a return on investment (ROI) when using cloud computing, the Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report notes, “Respondents estimate organizations waste 30% of cloud spend.” Furthermore, Gartner predicts that end-user spending will grow 18.4% in 2021. Increasing visibility and monitoring cloud usage total cost of ownership (TCO) helps corporations optimize services. Avoid cloud sprawl by:

• Regularly evaluating your compute capacity, traffic, and storage
• Reviewing seasonal fluctuations and adjust cloud services
• Using tools to catch and shut down dev/test instances left running 
• Examining policies for approving, giving, and revoking cloud access

Gain Cloud Visibility With Managed IT Solutions

Regular cloud upkeep helps balance resources and budgets. But companies must invest in applications to effectively manage cloud use. Vendors providing IT managed services offer routine analysis and reporting of activity and usage, giving your teams increased visibility of consumed resources. Managed solutions also monitor system health and data pipelines while balancing resource costs with your budget.  They provide the experience, focus and technical skills needed to effectively manage your cloud investment while freeing your IT team to work on strategic initiatives.

Oversee OS Patch Management

Patch management is essential to secure cloud operations. Unfortunately, a ServiceNow survey of companies affected by data breaches finds, “60% of respondents say these breaches could have occurred because a patch was available for a known vulnerability but not applied.” Moreover, 37% of cyber-crime victims “don’t scan their networks and systems to see what they need to fix.” Patch management best practices consist of: 

• Use a testing environment or pilot group before a large-scale patch deployment
• Look for software dependencies affected by patching
• Have a backup plan for patch failure
• Reduce downtime by scheduling patch deployments during non-peak hours

Employ Security Hygiene Best Practices

Patch management is integral to operational efficacy and security, making it a key area to outsource using IT managed services. The right partner can help assess your IT patching tasks and develop a system that ensures security and stability throughout the process. 

Update and Test Disaster Recovery Plans

The cloud can significantly help your disaster recovery process. According to Unitrends’ Cloud and Disaster Recovery Survey, “60% of responding organizations report using cloud features such as short-term data storage, archiving, disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS), and/or as a direct backup location for PCs/servers.” However, 55% of respondents only test yearly, and over 20% don’t test at all. To avoid data loss and downtime, organizations should regularly run disaster recovery drills and evaluate data backup integrity. 

Use Managed IT Services to Reduce Downtime 

Companies leverage IT managed services to assess and address business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. Furthermore, managed support teams allow companies to get assistance during system outages. By outsourcing cloud monitoring and support, internal teams can focus on high-priority strategic activities. 

Get Support to Monitor and Maintain Cloud Technology 

Using cloud maintenance best practices and tools can improve reliability and efficiency while increasing uptime. To optimize resources and protect cloud data, consider partnering with a managed IT solutions provider. Doing so gives your IT staff access to core cloud teams of certified Amazon web services (AWS) cloud developers, DevOps specialists, and data engineers. Contact Indellient to learn how managed IT solutions can help your company with cloud monitoring and maintenance.

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Let Our Managed IT Solutions Team Help

Indellient is a Managed IT Solutions provider that works with companies in all industries to deliver superior value and technical innovation. Whether you’re looking to reduce bandwidth constraints on your internal IT teams or are in need of project leadership in cloud migration, DevOps planning, and execution, or data processing and analytics, Indellient is here to help. 

Indellient is an IT Professional Services Company that specializes in Data Analytics, Cloud Development Application, DevOps Services, Managed IT Solutions, and Business Process Management.

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