Ultima launches cloud analysis tool

Ultima has cut the ribbon on a cloud analytics service aimed squarely at SME customers looking for savings and a better understanding of what is happening across their estates.

The channel player’s Cloud Analyse offering includes a free assessment of an SME’s cloud activities over the course of a month, with recommendations at the end of the process. Ultima will lean on its cloud management platform and IA-Cloud tools to produce the report.

There is a sense that many SMEs are not on top of their cloud spending or security and services like Ultima’s can make an impact in a matter of weeks. The firm is confident it can help a business make decent savings once it has gone through its estate.

Ultima gave an example of the work it had done with a services company that used Cloud Analyse and found that it could make cost savings, without compromising quality, to the tune of £18,000 a year – a 30% saving on its annual consumption. The same review also found that the VPM was in a failed state and its website was not secure.

Ultima has been adding more security to its IA-Cloud management platform and last year added automated security compliance and a vulnerability analyser to help customers check quickly if they are up to date with regulations.

James Hunnybourne, cloud solutions director at Ultima, said the firm had identified a growing need in the market and was reacting to it.

“We know it’s almost impossible for small and medium-sized enterprises to keep up to speed with all the latest regulatory requirements and potential vulnerabilities in their cloud estates, as well as focus on cost optimisation,” he said.

Hunnybourne said the firm was so confident that it would produce cost savings for customers that it was prepared to back that claim.

“With over 70 cloud consultants, we’re offering SMEs a non-obligation chance to access our deep expertise to help them improve their cloud estate management and optimise their cloud costs, as well as ‘test’ how secure their estate is,” he added. “We are confident our service will help SMEs save 20% of their public cloud costs, and if they don’t, we will give them a year’s free use of IA-Cloud. 

“Our analysis service is designed to assess an SME’s cloud footprint in order to identify cost savings and deviations from best practice, as well as provide guidance around the introduction of optimisation and automation tools. Created for organisations that are already consuming [Microsoft] Azure services, this free, consultant-led engagement provides insights to companies’ existing cloud workloads, architecture, security and documentation.”