The real life costs of managing public cloud services can get out of control if not managed correctly, according to Fronde, who says staff with a specific skillset are required.

The company says that this skillset is in short supply in the ANZ region.

While many oragnisations have embraced the cloud in the expectation of achieving lower costs and improved competitive advantage, they are not always aware of how exensive it may be.

 “Organisations are using public cloud to accelerate digital transformation. While this seems cost-effective in the short-term, building the capabilities to support and manage cloud platforms within an organisation can be expensive,” says James Valentine, chief technology officer, Fronde.

“And finding employees with the required skillset can be difficult; the latest research from Hays Quarterly suggests these skills are in short supply in the ANZ region.

Fronde research has found that organisations without specialist skills to manage and optimise the AWS platform spend up to 60% more in platform costs and experience 35% more security breaches.

“The challenge for organisations is to build the capability to support and manage the platform,” says Valentine.

“In practice, their priority defaults to delivering product or software delivery milestones. The result is higher platform costs. Worse, they may be exposing themselves to significant security risks,” he adds.

Valentine says in order to overcome these issues, organisations can form partnerships with other organisations to acquire specialist capabilities to proactively manage cloud platform performance, costs, and security.

“Also, to maximise the return on investment, these organisations should engage with partners and use the specialist skills of their SaaS and IaaS cloud architects,” he says.

“By incorporating specialist tools, skills, and DevOps practices, organisations can save on costs and reduce their security risk,” says Valentine.

“Utilising the training offered by cloud providers can also help develop valuable platform management skills within the organisation's IT team.

Valentine  says for many organisations, achieving maximum return on investment is unlikely given their limited access to in-house skills and resources.

“These organisations stand to benefit reduced costs and improved security by outsourcing their cloud platform management to the right partner.