Integrated Cloud billing

Forrester Research estimates that Azure and Amazon Web ServicesTM (AWS) combined controlled up to 90% of the global cloud platform market in 2014. Coupled with its earlier AWS integration, Apptio now provides one of the more comprehensive views of public cloud billing data in the context of an its overall IT spend. By enabling enterprises to monitor how the consumption of public cloud services is shaping overall IT costs, Apptio provides IT and business leaders with a shared set of facts to make informed decisions about the adoption of public cloud.

Apptio now automatically downloads a company’s Azure invoices, translates that billing detail into a common format, and then maps those costs into the industry-standard cost model for IT. The resulting analysis is presented in a set of dashboards and reports that can be understood by both technology and business leaders.
“In the absence of a standard method of measuring and evaluating the cost of the public cloud, we are left with an incomplete picture of IT’s total spend,” said Phuong Tram, CIO at DuPont. “The ability to automate the integration of public cloud billing data into Apptio’s TBM applications makes our decision making and business reporting process much more productive.”

Additionally, Apptio has released a new version of its CT for Business Units module allowing IT to have fact-based conversations about the source of its major costs. This application includes new reports, analytics, and modeling features that allow IT leaders to clearly measure and communicate the impact of the business’ needs and consumption on IT’s budget. With these new features, IT is better able to discuss the value of the applications, services, and projects it provides and influence demand by exposing the true cost of resources and services.

In most organizations, it’s hard for business units to see the impact that their demand for resources has on IT’s budget. Consequently, IT is viewed as a “black box” providing marginal value while generating costs. From an IT perspective, the business consumes IT as if it were free, crowding out funding for innovation and growth. Today’s enhancements to Apptio’s CT application balance internal supply and demand by making it clearer to both IT and business leaders what a given product (such as applications and services) actually costs and why.

“In most organizations, cloud and technology costs are viewed in a vacuum and not in the context of IT’s entire budget or the needs of the business,” said Ted Kummert, EVP of Engineering at Apptio. “With these new features, we’re unifying the goals of the CIO, CFO, and CEO to guarantee that technology is deployed to provide measureable value to the broader business goals.”