Cloud analytics for IT infrastructure offers one of the most straightforward ways not only to improve infrastructure performance, but to drive business growth and scalability.
In today’s digital-first era, business speed, agility, and outcomes depend on IT’s ability to match the speed of business.
A complex, slow IT infrastructure that drains resources will be less able to support business initiatives than one that is optimized, agile, and high-performance.
Fortunately, cloud analytics can offer ongoing, real-time insights that can be used to optimize IT infrastructure and, as a result, accelerate business outcomes.
Cloud Analytics for IT Infrastructure: A Definition
Strictly speaking, cloud analytics refers to any type of data analysis that is executed in the cloud.
As with analytics that are run on-premises, cloud analytics are typically used to identify patterns and extract actionable insights. Cloud analytics can be applied in a wide variety of domains, from scientific research to marketing to IT. Regardless of the specific application, analytics can offer insights used to drive better outcomes.
One of the key differences between cloud analytics and on-premises analytics is scale. The cloud can process large data sets rapidly, making it useful for data-intensive applications such as machine learning and deep learning. Another key difference is that cloud analytics are hosted in the cloud, so they can be run and accessed from any location.
Cloud-based IT infrastructure analytics is a subset of cloud analytics which specifically refers to cloud analytics designed to analyze, monitor, and optimize IT infrastructure.
Infrastructure analytics are often used to:
- Improve infrastructure performance
- Reduce IT waste
- Decrease costs
- Identify inefficiencies
- Protect data and bolster security
- Drive IT agility, efficiency, and scalability
- Accelerate business outcomes
Not all cloud-based infrastructure analytics solutions offer the same features or value. Some provide more insight than others and some are easier to use than others. Some are narrow in scope, and some are not. Finding the right solution for one’s needs, therefore, requires a close assessment of the available tools.
Considerations When Selecting a Cloud Analytics Platform
When evaluating contenders, it is important to look for features that will offer the insights most relevant to one’s own infrastructure. IT teams must also consider the impact on their workflows – for example, one tool is much more practical than ten separate tools.
Features to look for include:
- Real-time monitoring to find and fix problems faster
- Optimization to assist with resource management
- Security features to protect against threats
- SaaS-based simplicity and accessibility
In short, look for a solution that is easy to deploy and use, with the power to offer continuous, actionable insights for data management and security.
Drive Scalability and Business Growth with NetApp Cloud Analytics
NetApp is an industry leader who provides a wide range of data and cloud solutions built for modern IT needs. They offer a suite of applications relevant to infrastructure analytics:
- Cloud Insights is a SaaS-based infrastructure analytics solution, specifically designed for today’s dynamic cloud technologies, which offers real-time monitoring, troubleshooting, and cost optimization
- Cloud Volumes is a cloud-native file service with high I/O performance, high availability, and ease of use, suited for the most demanding analytic workloads
- Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is a fully managed AWS file service that offers unmatched performance with analytics, compliance, compute optimization, and enterprise data efficiencies
- Azure NetApp Files is an easy-to-use native file service for Azure that offers data management and integration with Azure services to support the most sensitive file workloads
- Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud provides extreme performance and advanced data management capabilities
Cloud Insights, NetApp’s purpose-built IT infrastructure analytics solution, is ideal for those who want to leverage the cloud’s power to gain new insight into their infrastructure.
Cloud Insights enables organizations to:
- Get full-stack visibility into their infrastructure and applications across the hybrid cloud at scale
- Simplify analysis and management with a single tool
- Seamlessly navigate Kubernetes clusters to identify and address performance issues and resource constraints
- Gain intelligent insights and recommendations with AI-based detection to proactively avoid or resolve issues
A purpose-built analytics solution like Cloud Insights can help businesses improve their IT infrastructure’s performance and efficiency. IT departments, in turn, will be better able to meet business needs, drive scalability, and support business growth.
However, as with all sophisticated IT solutions, maximizing the ROI of these solutions require deep technical expertise. Partnering with the right IT solution provider ensures that you make the most of your investment, so you can focus on your business, rather than learning, deploying, and maintaining new IT investments.
Adopt Cloud Analytics Confidently with Logicalis and NetApp
Logicalis delivers end-to-end managed and professional services, including consulting, implementation, management, optimization, and maintenance.
As a NetApp Star Partner, we help our customers solve their most critical IT and business challenges with NetApp’s entire suite of data management solutions, including their cloud-based IT infrastructure analytics solutions.
Partner with us today to make the most of NetApp’s cloud analytics and run your IT infrastructure at peak performance.