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Modern organizations have good reasons to deploy public cloud infrastructure. Cloud technology offers flexibility and scalability that makes it indispensable for growing organizations.
Despite their convenience (or, perhaps, because of their convenience), cloud assets accumulate quickly. Without effective management, these assets can impair the visibility, security, and cost-effectiveness of your IT as a whole. Cloud asset management helps combat these risks. This blog will cover the basics of cloud asset management and its benefits, best practices, and potential future developments.
Understanding Cloud Asset Management
Cloud asset management (CAM) is the practice of tracking the assets in your cloud infrastructure. It supports the delivery of cloud services while optimizing the security and usability of the cloud environment. It relies on specialized asset management software to address the unique characteristics of cloud assets.
Definition and Importance of Cloud Asset Management
The traditional approach to asset management doesn’t work for cloud-based assets. Manually tracking cloud assets in a spreadsheet is time-consuming and error-prone. Further, users may provision new cloud services very quickly, which can make it difficult to keep up. Cloud-based asset management requires a faster, more accurate approach.
CAM solves this problem by giving cloud engineers and asset managers access to automated tools for tracking and categorizing cloud assets. It enables organizations to scale their cloud capabilities without losing track of important digital assets. The result is asset tracking and management that scales with cloud usage.
What Are Examples of Cloud Assets?
Cloud assets need their own management solution because they are different from traditional on-premises assets. Many cloud assets are intangible, making it difficult to use physical inventory tagging solutions on them. Instead, IT leaders need to use cloud-specific technologies to track asset data effectively.
Here are some examples of cloud assets that demonstrate what makes them unique.
Compute Resources
Cloud compute resources are parts of your cloud infrastructure that support cloud workloads and processes. That includes physical assets like servers and endpoints as well as non-physical ones like virtual machines.
Your organization may use compute resources offered by cloud providers, or it may have its own. Many organizations have a combination of both. To track these assets effectively, you must be able to distinguish them from one another based on their characteristics.
Networking Resources
Virtual routers, firewalls, and network management software are all examples of networking resources. These resources’ core functionality is sending and receiving data packets throughout your network.
In cloud-based networking environments, these resources rely entirely on cloud infrastructure. This reduces the cost of deploying flexible, scalable cloud services and enhances productivity. It can also increase the complexity of your IT environment, creating a need for cloud asset management software.
Databases
One of the main benefits of cloud infrastructure is the ability to manage and process data directly through the internet. Cloud database technology makes this possible by storing data without requiring on-premises hardware.
Several different kinds of cloud databases exist. Relational cloud databases, non-tabular databases, and in-memory databases all work in different ways. Your cloud asset management strategy must take these unique factors into account. Understanding cloud databases as assets makes it easier to implement the right database deployment for cloud computing workflows.
Security and Identity
Cloud-based security and identity assets include solutions like Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platforms, security information and event management (SIEM) tools, and authentication services. These assets play an important role validating users as they interact with cloud infrastructure.
Managing these assets effectively is vital for ensuring optimal coverage. Security processes must be comprehensive in order to produce results. Cloud asset management tools help prevent blind spots from impacting your security posture. They ensure security policies are enforced uniformly across your cloud infrastructure and enable IT security compliance audits.
Development and DevOps Tools
Collaborative development tools are an important part of DevOps processes. These tools provide services like product discovery, sprint planning, issue tracking, and more. Some offer production-identical development environments using containerization.
All of these tools are cloud assets. They need to be tracked and managed along with the rest of your cloud infrastructure. This is true of proprietary software as well as third-party Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. Each asset places a unique set of lifecycle management needs on the organization, and the IT team must accommodate those needs.
Analytics and Machine Learning
Analytics and machine learning tools are a major part of the push toward cloud-enabled big data. These tools have unique support and usage profiles. They must be secured with the appropriate policies and given access to other assets. Doing this effectively means incorporating them into a cloud asset management framework.
The reports, dashboards, and data visualizations these tools create are also cloud assets. Executives and stakeholders want this information to be accessible and secure. Your cloud asset management solution should include features for protecting sensitive cloud resources and data.
Software Licenses
Both in-house and cloud-native software must be licensed. Keeping track of software licenses becomes difficult as organizations grow. Managing multiple versions of software across different containerized environments demands complete visibility and automation.
Cloud asset management platforms give organizations a single point of reference for managing software licenses across environments. This makes it easier to track software licenses as assets alongside the cloud infrastructure they rely on to function.
Onboarding Cloud Assets Into the IT Environment
Full-featured CAM platforms help IT teams onboard cloud assets without compromising on visibility or security. They can provision and assign cloud assets to employees using the same processes they would for physical assets. This helps maintain the accessibility and accountability of cloud technology.
Initial Evaluation and Inventory
The first step toward optimal cloud asset management is conducting cloud asset discovery. Begin this process by identifying the scope of cloud asset management in your larger IT asset management (ITAM) strategy. You must specify the cloud environments and workloads you wish to include and select the right tool for the process.
Cloud asset discovery works much the same way traditional asset discovery does. However, there are some key differences. There is minimal hardware to track in a cloud-native environment. These environments are more dynamic and scalable in nature, which means resources can be provisioned and deprovisioned rapidly. The need for continuous monitoring is greater with cloud assets.
Integration Steps
Once you have conducted cloud asset discovery, you should have an inventory of assets throughout your cloud environment. The next step is integrating all of those assets into your CAM so you can control them effectively.
Each public cloud provider has specific tools and features to help you control these assets. For example:
- Amazon provides AWS Config and CloudTrail for AWS.
- Microsoft has Azure Resource Graph.
- Google has cloud asset inventory and Security Command Center for Google Cloud.
You may have third-party tools with cross-cloud capabilities that also require integration. You will have to customize your choice of tools to the needs of your environment and its operational requirements. You can then tag and label your cloud assets and configure identity and access management policies accordingly.
Challenges During Onboarding
Cloud asset management comes with its own set of challenges. The biggest obstacles stem from the dynamic, scalable nature of cloud infrastructure itself. Users can provision and deprovision new instances whenever they want. Unmanaged instances are not tracked by your asset management tools, which reduces the effectiveness of your cloud security posture.
Automation helps solve this problem, but it can come with risks of its own. Automation requires specialist expertise to be carried out effectively. Misconfigurations can deeply impact cloud security, and automation can extend misconfiguration risks across your IT environment.
The same is true of tagging and labeling processes. Effective cloud asset management depends on high-quality tools as well as excellent training and support.
Benefits of Cloud Asset Management
Asset management provides clear benefits to growing organizations. The scalability of the cloud can provide major advantages to growing organizations, particularly around security and efficiency. Robust cloud asset management enhances visibility and control over this increasingly important part of the enterprise IT environment.
Inventory and Tracking
A centralized cloud inventory delivers full visibility into assets that deliver cloud services. This allows the organization to handle lifecycle management in the cloud more effectively. It ensures critical service delivery while protecting the system from unexpected downtime.
At the same time, continuous inventory and tracking addresses the risk of rogue assets and shadow IT in cloud environments. Giving users the ability to provision and deploy cloud resources on demand comes with the risk of unmanaged applications running with minimal security oversight. Automated cloud asset discovery lets the security team enforce policies on newly provisioned instances immediately.
Improved Efficiency and Scalability
Cloud technology enhances productivity due to its efficiency and scalability. CAM platforms help extend these benefits to asset management processes. Automation is a core feature driving the value of CAM implementations. The ability to discover assets as they are added, control costs, and track asset history in real time supports the efficiency of business operations across the board.
Data Management
Managing data on cloud assets should be as simple as managing data on in-house assets. CAM solutions help organizations establish a foundation of observability and scalability that extends throughout their entire cloud environment. This makes it easier to track and categorize data residing on cloud assets, and to secure high-value data accordingly.
Cost Optimization
Asset management helps control costs and eliminate waste. Organizations can use techniques like autoscaling to allocate resources efficiently and avoid overpaying for cloud resources. Autoscaling simplifies capacity management and enables use cases like immutable infrastructure and automated provisioning.
Enhanced Security and Compliance
Inventory and asset tracking is a core requirement of many security and compliance frameworks. Before you can effectively secure cloud assets with modern security technologies, you must know what assets you have and where they reside. Full-featured cloud-native IT asset management solutions enable high-value security operations and help IT leaders demonstrate regulatory compliance.
Best Practices for Cloud Asset Management
Simply deploying cloud asset management is not enough to guarantee optimal results. IT leaders should look for opportunities to enhance the benefits CAM solutions offer while promoting the reliability and security of cloud assets.
Regular Audits and Monitoring
Continuous monitoring helps you catch cloud misconfigurations before they turn into disruptive productivity bottlenecks or security weaknesses. Regular IT audits ensure your processes remain compliant and help identify areas that need improvement. Both are vital to long-term success managing and tracking cloud assets.
Automation and Tool Integration
Manual cloud asset management processes can’t keep up with the dynamic and scalable power of cloud computing. Take advantage of automation and integrate third-party tools to ensure cloud usage policies are enforced. This guarantees the reliability and scalability of your asset management processes.
Risk Management and Mitigation
Gaining comprehensive visibility into cloud assets is your first step to achieving operational security excellence. Use cloud asset management data to adopt a proactive approach to risk management. Look for security vulnerabilities and address them before they lead to disruptive events.
Future Trends and Innovations in Cloud Asset Management
Cloud technology continues to transform IT operations for small businesses, enterprises, and everyone in between. The ability to host products, services, and development environments on third-party infrastructure unlocks extraordinary value. This trend has only just begun, and will soon be enhanced by emerging technologies and considerable market growth.
AI and Machine Learning Applications
Predictive AI is already a major contributor to cloud growth. Big data analytics provide organizations with the ability to predict future behavior based on historical patterns. This enables everything from weather forecasting to preventative hardware maintenance.
Generative AI is a much newer entrant to the cloud asset management sector. It could revolutionize the way users interact with cloud assets and track inventories. Natural language processing could unlock significant value for nontechnical users of cloud infrastructure and assets.
Predicted Market Growth
Experts expect the global cloud infrastructure market to triple by 2034. As organizations host increasingly complex applications on cloud infrastructure, the need to manage cloud-based assets will grow even more. IT leaders will need deeper visibility and control into cloud asset usage. Organizations with well-established cloud usage policies will enjoy a privileged position in tomorrow’s market.
Emerging Technologies in Cloud Asset Management
Cloud infrastructure has a role to play supporting generative AI, 5G networking, and new multimedia technologies as they become increasingly popular. Fewer organizations will invest in expensive on-site IT infrastructure to support cutting-edge technologies.
Instead, those technologies will be delivered through cloud-native applications. More cloud applications means more cloud assets. Those assets need to be tracked, secured, and monitored effectively.
JumpCloud helps IT leaders gain visibility into cloud infrastructure, proactively address security vulnerabilities, and reduce unnecessary cloud infrastructure costs. Sign up for a free trial and discover how JumpCloud can deliver secure, compliant, and optimized SaaS usage from a single unified platform.
