November 3, 2024

Top 10 Cloud-Based Management Tools

Cloud-Based Management Tools

Cloud-Based Management Tools

Management of public, private, or hybrid cloud infrastructure resources and services is referred to as cloud management. IT professionals may manage those scaled and dynamic computing systems with the aid of a well-designed cloud management plan.

Aims of cloud management.

Cloud management helps companies achieve the following objectives:

  • Self service: When IT professionals use cloud resources, build new ones, track usage and costs, and modify resource allocations, they are achieving self-service.
  • Workflow Automation: Operations teams may manage cloud instances without human intervention thanks to workflow automation.
  • Cloud analysis: Tracking cloud workloads and user experiences is made easier by cloud analysis.

Any cloud management approach is unlikely to be successful in the absence of a capable IT workforce. These people must be knowledgeable about the appropriate tools and best practices while keeping the company’s cloud management objectives in mind.

Importance of cloud management.

Businesses are more likely to enhance the efficiency, dependability, cost efficiency, and environmental sustainability of cloud computing. Repetitive jobs are part of application management. Instead of performing these activities manually, you may use APIs to manage provision servers and push code automatically. Cloud management plays a vital role in the management of one’s security status and the vulnerability of one’s IT assets. For instance, to handle the billing accounts, orders, resource packages, and bills for Alibaba Cloud services, Cloud Management Partners (CMP) can use a set of billing APIs provided by Alibaba Cloud.

Ways to approach cloud management.

There are numerous approaches to cloud management, and they should preferably be used in tandem. IT shops can traverse challenging vendor pricing patterns with the aid of cost-monitoring technologies. Applications operate more effectively when they make use of performance optimization tools and have architectures created using tried-and-true design techniques. Many of these techniques and tools complement energy-efficient architecture designs that are environmentally friendly. Since there is no one strategy to cloud management, decisions must ultimately be based on specific organizational interests and objectives.

What is a cloud-based management tool?

Cloud management tools are those tools that give businesses access to resources and services across many clouds (public and private). These equipment can be bought and used by One central organization or Numerous lines of business.

These tools can either be used on-premises or as a SaaS offering. The tools have practically endless uses and fall under numerous categories, including:

  • Resource and capacity management
  • Security
  • Compliance
  • Big Data analysis

Factors to consider while choosing cloud management tools.

There are numerous factors that need to be considered when choosing a cloud software management tool. Some of this factors include:

  • Resource Management
  • Scalability
  • Automation and provisioning
  • Cross-platform interoperability
  • Compliance and Governance
  • Reporting

Now let’s take a look at each of this factors

Resource Management: Resource management is one of the most important features to be included in cloud management solutions. IT is able to manage each resource thanks to this capability. Additionally, service blueprints include setup and best practice details to reduce cloud administrative overhead and accelerate deployment.

Additionally monitored in the configuration management database are all cloud components used in a production system (CMDB). Without these IT processes, controlling and resolving problems with production systems is incredibly difficult, ineffective, and expensive.

Scalability: The need for the cloud management solution to be scalable may go without saying. The majority of hybrid clouds are dynamic and constantly expanding, hence a management tool must be adaptable to Utilize modern technology and Scale over many geographic areas.

Automation and Provision: Many would contend that in today’s massively scaled cloud environment, the less human intervention needed in some management areas, the better.

Automation is essential for a wide range of operational duties. With the rise of artificial intelligence and AIOps tools, developers and administrators may no longer have to do manual tasks like scaling up or down based on system load.IT is under pressure to enable agile app development and deployment procedures across the complete lifecycle because digital innovation projects often concentrate on delivering more frequent releases of apps to web and mobile platforms.

Cross-platform Interoperability: One of the main goals of hybrid cloud management is to simplify things overall by combining the administration of several cloud platforms into a single dashboard. This system won’t be used as intended and won’t be effective if it’s too complicated or requires too many tools.

Access to physical and virtual infrastructure throughout an enterprise will be required by many emerging cloud services like

  • Windows, AIX or mainframe
  • Hypervisors like vSphere, KVM and HyperV
  • Public clouds including Azure, Ass,  GCP and more.

Cloud management technologies must make it easy for IT Operations to manage and provide these diverse services. The user requires widespread support for operating systems and cloud platforms, which the selected solution must automate.

Compliance and Governance: It is critical for decision-makers to have control over who has access to certain information and what they can do with it when considering resource provisioning.

In the past, manual procedures were used to grant this kind of authorization, but these rapidly proved to be ineffective and prone to user error. For the following reasons, any cloud management solution must be able to:

  • Determine who is in charge of each resource.
  • Automate approvals based on a set of rules and roles that have been established.

The system should also automate widespread operational and regulatory compliance standards that control and enhance IT agility. System updates can be made swiftly and accurately by automating the detection and correction of drift from standardized and permitted configurations. It is necessary to implement and automate best practice security.

Reporting: Not least of all, the solution must include thorough reports on resource utilization.

Hybrid cloud infrastructures unquestionably contain numerous moving pieces and occasionally serve thousands of users simultaneously. The ability of an organization’s cloud management tool to offer complete visibility into both is crucial, especially for large corporations.

This kind of reporting ought to provide a bird’s-eye view of the entire system, gather information from many technologies, and combine it all into a single, comprehensive image. These reports should include details on total costs, chargebacks, and showbacks.

Cloud-based management tools.

There are several cloud management solutions available right now, and more are being released every day. These tools, whose functions are as varied as the companies who buy them, are designed to assist enterprises in managing and monitoring all cloud applications.

Without wasting any time let’s get into business!

Top 10 cloud-based management tools.

In this list we are going to be counting down from bottom to top on the best management tool out there.

10. CloudHealth

A platform that enables customers to assess and manage cloud prices, usage, and performance is ideal for small to large businesses.

Price

  • Price on request.
  • Free trial available.

Another CMP from VMware is called CloudHealth, and it supports a wide range of platforms, including AWS, New Relic, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, among others. A platform for managing and optimizing cloud services, it enables administrators to control cloud consumption, pricing, security, and governance.

Here, you can utilize unique policies and workflows to keep the cloud environment under control with the ability to keep an eye on costs. Additionally, it has security notifications that you receive in the event of a threat or security violation.

Features

  • Information Hub
  • Streamline decision making
  • Interactive reporting
  • Automated workflows
  • Cost tracking with metadata
  • Issue tracking and driver identification

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

With VMWare’s strength and expertise behind it, CloudHealth undoubtedly has a lot going for it. Here, you can anticipate broad compatibility and a wealth of capabilities that are available right out of the box in a user-friendly package that will get you up and running quickly.

Cons 

Dashboards might use some improvement as it is not easy for first time users to navigate. In all the platform needs a lot of ui upgrade to ease users navigation around it.

9. RedHat CloudForms

The platform is best for businesses looking for an infrastructure management platform that enables IT departments to manage, provide, and enforce policies across clouds and virtual machines.

Price

On request.

Another well-known brand that needs no introduction is RedHat. All of the tools required to manage both private and virtual cloud infrastructures are included in their CloudForms CPM solution.

High security and performance are both features of the CloudForms platform. It functions in all settings and has a wide range of provider integration options.

Features

  • Physical virtual and private cloud management
  • Automation
  • Corporate government policies applications  and custom automated remediation
  • Self service
  • Full life cycle management
  • Security and performance enhancement
  • Resources monitoring

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

It is an extremely effective CMP solution. Additionally, it can be highly customized, albeit doing so may involve coding.

Cons

RedHat CloudForms has a somewhat challenging learning curve.

8. OpenStack

The best option for small to large businesses seeking a way to manage a lot of computer, storage, and networking resources.

Price

Free

One more Apache project is OpenStack. Naturally, it is open source and appropriate for diverse infrastructures.

The OpenStack API or the dashboard can be used to manage resources, and online documentation is easily available. Additional components also offer services like orchestration and management of faults and services.

Features

  • Web frontend dash
  • Container orchestration engine
  • Clustering workflow and compute service
  • Optimization service
  • Big data processing framework provisioning
  • Bare metal provisioning service
  • RCA (root cause analysis service)
  • Network automation for multi region deployment
  • Key automation

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

Along with a number of features, OpenStack also has a whole ecosystem that includes summits, training, and a marketplace. Additionally, you have the option to download the source code, allowing you the flexibility to deploy this CMP whichever best suits your business.

Cons

It takes more than just executing a program and pressing the “next” button until it’s finished to deploy OpenStack. Because it’s a collection of projects and each of them needs to be customized to the demands of the user, installing it is actually very difficult. Therefore, it is advisable to have an expert handle the installation, or ideally, a company with several specialists who can provide the variety of complementary skill sets needed for a perfect setup.

7.  Embotics 

Small to medium-sized businesses searching for a hybrid cloud management solution that makes it easier for people, processes, and products to collaborate are best served by this product.

Price 

  • On request
  • No free trial

The Commander CMP from Embotics intends to provide cloud administrators with simplicity, flexibility, and insight. With numerous automation and customization capabilities, it supports both hypervisors and public cloud providers, ensuring that operations go as smoothly as possible.

Features

  • Cloud expertise management
  • Provision automation and orchestration
  • Low-cost installation
  • Cost-saving suggestion
  • Reports

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

The Commander CMP from Embotics goes beyond the technical management features of a CPM by providing a variety of reports and insights that can be used by administrators and users to reduce expenses and boost productivity.

Cons

The analytical company Forresters awarded Embotics poorer ratings for its client base (1.00), product revenue (1.00), cloud optimization (2.00), and resources supplied by the cloud platform(2.40).

6. Scalr

The software works best for businesses wishing to keep corporate governance structures in place while empowering their IT employees with autonomy and operational freedom.

Price

  • On request
  • No free trial

 Scalr is a hybrid cloud management platform that places a strong emphasis on automation and self-service. It can adhere to a variety of corporate rules and best practices to assist you in maintaining any contractual responsibilities you may have.

With Scalr, managers can automate the speedy deployment of several apps across various cloud environments in a consistent and economical manner. A policy engine that can automatically enforce conditional policies is also included with Scalr. It controls access by using user roles.

Last but not least, administrators can design service catalogs with access limited to specific users using Scalr’s self-service.

Features

  • Cost optimization
  • Security and compliance
  • Customized self service
  • Cloud policy engine

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

Scalr has received positive ratings in part because of its ease of use and customer service. This CMP is a fantastic option for people that place a high value on compliance because it also provides a scalable solution and can adhere to a wide range of policies.

Cons

Scalr scored poor ratings for its client base, revenue from products, partner ecosystem, and average deal size. It “lacks the enterprise customer base of other examined peers,” according to the Forrester assessment.

5. BMC cloud lifecycle management.

Small to big firms wishing to automate the provisioning, governance, and management of secure cloud services should use this software.

Price

On request

Another CMP option that emphasizes automation of quick provisioning from basic VMs to complete application stacks across cloud and non-cloud platforms is BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

By being one step ahead at all times, you may automatically apply policies to comply with security and compliance standards. Additionally, BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management enables the automation of governance procedures for ITSM (IT Service Management).

Features

  • Self service portal
  • Automated ITSM governance
  • Platform neutrality
  • Full stack service provisioning
  • Continuous compliance
  • Service health management

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management should be taken into account with an emphasis on reducing costs and the time it takes to provide systems. Users laud their ease of use and global support.

Cons

The software has a poor execution road map, a commercial model that needs to be worked on and a shaky support service.

4.  Apache CloudStack

For small to large enterprises searching for open-source software to deploy and manage virtual machines in a highly scalable and available environment, this program works well. Best suited for small to large enterprises seeking open-source software to install and manage virtual machines in a highly scalable and available environment.

Price

Free

One of the most popular CPMs now accessible is Apache CloudStack, which is a well-known brand in the networking industry. CloudStack is an open source project with community and enterprise versions available that was recently acquired by Citrix.

Through its user-friendly interface, CloudStack allows you to manage a sizable number of virtual machine networks with ease. You may connect to a wide range of third party services thanks to its RESTful API and ability to scale effortlessly with your organization.

Features

  • Compute Orchestration
  • NaaS
  • User Account management, dynamic workload management etc.
  • First-class UI
  • Secure cloud deployment
  • Resource provisioning

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

Both of Apache’s CMPs, which are highlighted in this review list, have a lot of community support. You may anticipate a lot of forums with support and lessons since it is open-source. The ability to use the code can be a huge benefit, Low-cost solution,Open-source and Solid documentation

Cons

  • Maintenance tools
  • Less command line interventions
  • Server logs not so friendly
  • Upgrades are not so straightforward
  • The graphical interface performance in big environments can get a little bit slow

3. Flexera Rightscale

Small to medium firms searching for a way to control and manage their software and IT costs should use this software.

Price

  • Price on request
  • Free demo on request
  • Description

Rightscale was recently bought by Flexera, creating Flexera RightScale. This CPM, sometimes referred to as the Flexera Cloud Management Platform, has the ability to manage virtual and bare-metal servers as well as public and private clouds.

AWS and Azure are just a couple of the services that can be managed with Flexera’s CPM.

Features

  • Engine for orchestration that automates tasks on all hosts and cloud services.
  • Automation of cost, security, compliance, and operation governance with personalized policies.
  • cloud, data center, and tenant access under control.
  • Workload Monitoring
  • Reporting
  • security warnings

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

Flexera is really exercising its muscles in the CMP space and is highly recommended. Potential clients sometimes become suspicious of new paths after an acquisition, but this doesn’t seem to be the case in this case.

Cons

Dashboards and monitoring are only two examples of CMP features that are rather obsolete and stale.

2. IBM CloudOrchestrator

This program works well for medium-sized to large businesses looking for a cloud platform that includes advanced data and AI technologies and covers blockchain, IoT, and AI.

Price

On request

Another well-known company that provides CPM solutions is IBM. Their Cloud Orchestrator has a scalable cloud management platform that uses a number of policy-based technologies to automatically provide cloud services.

IBM’s solution can manage public, private, and hybrid clouds thanks to a user-friendly interface that lowers the learning curve and a plethora of automation and security options.

Features

  • development and testing of apps.
  • synchronization of tasks
  • automation of cloud configuration
  • Cloud services administration
  • Cloud use statistics
  • dashboards for executive costs
  • Change management automation
  • Customizable self-service portal
  • SLA compliance

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

Both the Base and Enterprise versions of this software include substantial infrastructure support and automation. With What-If capacity analysis and health dashboards, the enterprise edition takes this to the next level, making it a full-featured solution.

The key advantages of IBM Cloud Orchestrator are faster service delivery times, a unified platform that enables coordinated management, a cutting-edge user interface, and consistent policy adherence.

Cons

  • Monitoring service needs to be improved upon
  • Cluster identity with random IDs are difficult to memorize.

1.  VMware

This software works best for medium-sized to large businesses seeking a basis for their apps, cloud, and business as well as a server virtualization platform.

Price

From 273 USD yearly

Thanks to the vRealise Suite, which comprises Automation, Log Insight, Operations, and Suite Lifecycle Manager, VMware’s CPM solution is more comprehensive. Agility, control, and efficiency are all features of the vRealise Suite for various application types.

It also allows developers and administrators the option to select the tools they want to use thanks to support for several sandbox types.

Features

  • Management service
  • Database server and inventory service
  • vCenter Orchestrator
  • Server linked mode

Reason for ranking on this list and position.

Virtualization and cloud technologies are synonymous with VMware, and customers give the vRealise Suite positive reviews. Even though there is a steep learning curve, it is certainly worth it if you have already made an investment in their ecosystem. Other key advantages are:

  • improved IT efficiency.
  • decreased operating expenses.
  • faster deployment of workloads
  • increased performance of the program.
  • increased server availability
  • a reduction in server complexity and sprawl.

Cons

  • failure to work with hardware that VMware supports.
  • The initialization time will be slowed by complicated device drivers.
  • incline learning curve
  • External code that is corrupt can cause initialization delays or server hangs.
  • Some features are missing from the trial software.

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