Cloud adoption has seen significant momentum in recent years, with most organizations either integrating cloud solutions or considering them as part of their digital transformation strategy. Despite its widespread adoption, one of the most persistent challenges in cloud optimization remains visibility, particularly in monitoring network traffic behavior and performance. Without comprehensive visibility, effective management and optimization become difficult.

Whether IT operations are managed on-premises or in the cloud, visibility is essential for operational efficiency and performance tuning. This requires both historical and real-time performance insights into network traffic and application behavior. As such, implementing robust monitoring tools should be a fundamental part of any cloud strategy.

Deploying monitoring tools comes with the challenge of log ingestion, processing, and verification. Organizations must maintain a rolling period of logs to derive meaningful insights. While a six-month retention period is typically the minimum standard, an 18-month rolling period is recommended for optimal insight extraction. For more advanced analytics, extending log retention to 24 or even 36 months allows for deeper trend analysis and historical comparisons. However, organizations should consider the increased storage requirements that come with longer retention periods.

Additionally, leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) within monitoring tools enhances the ability to detect and classify anomalies. Combining AI-driven insights with human validation helps identify and minimize false negatives, enabling a clearer understanding of past and current system performance trends.

According to Gartner, organizations should adopt a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) that is cloud-agnostic to ensure comprehensive cross-cloud visibility and governance. Such a platform provides monitoring and security capabilities across Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) environments, ensuring seamless oversight across multiple cloud ecosystems.

Once visibility is established, organizations should implement the following strategies to optimize cloud performance:

1. Enhancing Availability and Performance

• Optimize traffic flow to backend systems and endpoints to ensure a seamless experience for global and local stakeholders.
• Assess stakeholder locations and identify ways to improve performance for users outside the organization’s primary operational region.
• Define key performance metrics to measure and refine application efficiency.

2. Optimizing Content Delivery

• Utilize caching technologies and strategically place content closer to end users to minimize buffering, reduce load times, and enhance user experience.
• Implement customized content delivery solutions to cater to diverse stakeholder needs, similar to how Netflix optimizes streaming experiences worldwide.

3. Leveraging Local Zones for Latency-Sensitive Applications

• Deploy cloud services in proximity to end users to minimize latency and ensure optimal performance for critical applications.
• Align service components with stakeholder access points to improve overall responsiveness.

By implementing these strategies, organizations can optimize their cloud infrastructure to enhance performance, improve stakeholder experiences, and drive digital transformation success.

For further insights into cloud optimization and best practices, connect with our trusted consultants at Cybiant. Reach out to us at info@cybiant.com to schedule a discussion tailored to your organization’s needs.

Visit our Cybiant Knowledge Centre to find out more about the latest insights.