Manage Costs, Ensure Security, and Provide Support with Mythics DevFinOps for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

The cloud makes it easy to deploy infrastructure rapidly and get started on projects easily. But at the same time, many government agencies don't have the processes or controls in place to make sure that it is done in a secure, effective manner with the proper cost controls and accounting. The same ease of use that makes Oracle Cloud (or any Cloud) so easy to consume simultaneously can lead to surprises in any number of areas, including higher-than-expected billing, incorrect setup of services, and potential security holes. 

As the use of the cloud has continued to grow, there has been a proliferation of users. Some focused on the development (Dev) of applications within the cloud, and others were concerned about the costs and potential savings, finance (Fin).

Managing these two potentially competing forces has given rise to a powerful synergy known as DevFinOps. In this blog post, we will explore DevFinOps and show how Mythics can provide services that allow a government organization to optimize both areas as they uptake Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.   

DevFinOps seeks to align the development, deployment, and financial processes, creating a collaborative environment that fosters efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and innovation. It represents the convergence of DevOps, which focuses on rapid and collaborative software development and deployment, and FinOps, which emphasizes financial accountability and optimization. 

As the government rolls out Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, having a firm footing in both areas has emerged as a crucial enabler to ensure that organizations are getting the most out of their investments. 

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Overview 

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers capabilities and services that can provide great value to an organization. As government agencies seek a robust infrastructure to run their mission-critical applications and support their initiatives, OCI is a top choice. From computing, storage, and networking to analytics and AI/ML to the world's leading database platform, OCI offers a comprehensive suite of world-class services. But once you've decided to use OCI, the next question is how to use it securely and efficiently.   

Concerns that Agencies Face when Implementing OCI 

As an agency takes on OCI, there are a number of factors that they need to consider: 

1. Have I established my environment in a secure way? 
2. Have I configured and utilized inherent operational tooling to improve security and optimize the environment for ongoing maintenance? 
3. Have I configured secure connectivity to agencies' end systems via VPN or direct connection?
4. Have I enabled the appropriate compartments for ease of management?
5. Do I have the operational support that I need? 
6. Do I have the right infrastructure and application monitoring? 
7. Have I deployed the right Incident management and resolution processes? 
8. Am I prepared to make sure that my systems are patched and managed successfully? 
9. Have I deployed the right security tools to ensure no security incidents? 
10. Are my backups properly established, tested, and working? 
11. Do I have the high availability and disaster recovery that I need? 
12. Do I have the financial monitoring, alerts, and reporting that are necessary to properly account for usage and make sure I am getting the most from my investments? 
13. Have I established budgets and alerts? 
14. Am I optimizing my costs? 
15. Can I do the chargeback and show back what I need to do to ensure that projects are properly accounted for? 

These are complex topics. Fortunately, Mythics has developed a "DevFinOps Service" that can help customers establish the right environments up front, and get you started on the right foot. 

Mythics DevFinOps – Rolling Your Deployment Out Right and Managing Ongoing Costs 

Mythics OCI DevFinOps Services, a component of Mythics Managed Services, assists clients in the provisioning of the OCI environment, enabling key OCI features to improve your security posture and provide financial and technical management of your OCI Infrastructure environment.  

These components are a key part of the service: 

OCI Onboarding 

• Standard Tenancy Instantiation 
• Setup Secure Communication with the agency's on-premise environment or environment in other clouds 
• Deploy a Secure Landing Zone as a baseline for the implementation using best practices and with the security built in from the start 

Operational Support 

We monitor your OCI deployed resources and configure notification services to alert our incident management systems. Once alerted, our managed services use automated remediation, people, and processes to resolve. 

• Infrastructure & O/S Monitoring 
• Incident Management 
• Incident Resolution 
• Patching of Infrastructure and OS 
• Improve Security posture through configuration of CloudGuard and deployment of Secure Landing Zone. 
• Backup Management 

FinOps capability: 

We assist you with configuring key components of OCI's cost management and governance features including: 

• Budgets & Alerts to make sure that you know where your spending is going and that you don't exceed your budgets 
• Quota Management within compartments 

 In addition, we work with you to review cost savings recommendations to make sure you get the most out of every dollar of cloud spend, and we will assist you in providing detailed consumption reports that can be utilized to provide chargeback or showback capabilities.  

Summary 

The Cloud, and especially Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, has tremendous potential to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve constituent services. At the same time, it's critical to implement a secure environment, manage that environment, including incident management and patch management, and control and report on costs in an efficient manner. Mythics DevFinOps can set your agency on the right path to getting these things done. We have done it for many agencies, understand the security and management requirements, and know how to make sure the costs are transparent and managed. 

Contact sales@mythics.com today to schedule your discussion on Mythics OCI DevFinOps Services and start your project on the right foot!