CRN Exclusive: BCM One Tames 'Cloud Sprawl' And Helps Keep Azure, AWS Spending In Check With Cloud Expense Management Solution

BCM One is removing the burden of managing "cloud sprawl" for partners and customers who may be spending too much on cloud services they aren't fully using.

The IT and telecom management solution provider has unveiled Intelligent Cloud, a solution that lets businesses monitor, analyze, and adjust their cloud expenses and consumption.

Predicting monthly cloud spends is an overwhelming challenge that many users haven't been able to regulate, thanks to companies having multiple cloud computing users spread across several departments and businesses, with no easy way for users to analyze complex bills. Intelligent Cloud is fulfilling an urgent need in the marketplace, John Cunningham, founder and co-CEO of New York City-based BCM One, told CRN.

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BCM One is an Azure Digital Partner of Record – a partner program in which Microsoft pays solution providers recurring revenue for adding value on of top Azure billing for end customers. The result is BCM One's cloud expense management platform that can help customers anticipate their Azure usage, and review and analyze their cloud bills.

BCM One just completed a beta test with Intelligent Cloud for AWS, which is also now available for customers. Google cloud expense management is slated for later this month, Cunningham said.

"Once we have the three in place, users will actually be able to compare the costs for all three providers," he added.

Many of the large cloud providers, including Azure, work by taking payment up front, and then back bill customers on a quarterly basis for any overages. Customer portals for these large cloud players are often convoluted, making it hard for many end customers to understand their overages or identify details regarding these costs, Cunningham said.

By becoming a Digital Partner Of Record for the end customer, BCM One's Intelligent Cloud solution starts taking data feeds from the cloud provider and breaks down the information into clear parts for the end customer viewing the information, including network, compute, and storage.

BCM One has been helping end customers and its own channel community with telecom expense management for years, so cloud expense management is the next evolution. BCM One is using the same technology it used for telecom management for cloud expense management now, Cunningham said.

Intelligent Cloud runs specific reports for end customers, similar to telecom expense management systems. Expenses can be allocated to user groups, such as marketing, or to specific people within the organization, or even projects. Businesses can also graph spending trends, and tag new cloud instances that are being spun up by users within their organization.

Once a Digital Partner of Record, BCM One can set up a notification to alert customers to when they are nearing or at the limit of their monthly cloud consumption.

"It's about whether the consumption is accurate, if it's not in your budget, you're not going to be happy with the service,' Cunningham said.

BCM One's channel partners can also leverage Intelligent Cloud to help them sell a complete cloud solution to their end customers.

"Now that you've solved the billing problem for them, your engineers are talking to their engineers about the cloud, and now you can build on that relationship," he said.

Agent partners that don't have the resources to take on Intelligent Cloud can tap BCM One's BCM Professional Services and a team of certified cloud architects and network engineers to manage the solution for them on their customers' behalf while earning monthly residual income, Cunningham said.