On Wednesday, Cisco announced the launch of a new cloud-usage monitoring tool, which gives IT officials the ability to keep an eye on the use of public cloud services by company employees. With the tool used in conjunction with benchmarking and detailed analytics from Cisco, businesses will be provided with insight for the reduction of risks to the company’s security and for better cost management. Overall, Cisco estimates, business are using at least 20 times more cloud services without the approval of IT administrators.
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The company said it created the platform to help CIOs manage their issues related to the so-called shadow IT, a term often used to describe IT systems and product built and used inside organisations without explicit organisational approval.
That’s where Cisco Cloud Consumption as a Service comes into play. Additionally, the average number of public cloud services has grown 112 percent over the past year, and 67 percent over the past six months, Cisco said. With this information at our fingertips we can partner more effectively with our business groups.
IT officials can set up CCaaS to alert them upon the detection of unusual cloud activity at their company, and to report the usage of redundant cloud services. “We can also proactively ensure we have the appropriate security and compliance measures in place”.
Before the platform’s release, Cisco offered an early adoption program to some of its partners, including Aqueduct Technologies. “(CCaaS) is a tool for IT to use in order to get a census of cloud usage – maybe negotiate better per-seat pricing or volume discounts if the cloud service is being widely or heavily used, make sure customer data is being protected and regulatory mandates are being followed”, Posey says. “I was able to show him data in the Cloud Consumption dashboard and he was amazed at services he didn’t realize he was using”, Chris Jennings, president and chief strategy officer at Aqueduct Technologies, explained in a joint statement. “We then had the opportunity to help them identify public, private and hybrid solutions that can impact their business”.
Cisco utilized CityMD, an urgent care company that has 50 facilities in NY and New Jersey, as an example of an adopter of Cloud Consumption.
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Cisco’s Cloud Consumption as a Service is now available globally, and is priced at approximately $1 to $2 dollars per employee per month.
