Volkswagen.

About.

Volkswagen (VW), part of the VW Group, is a German automotive manufacturer.

The Volkswagen Group designs, manufactures and distributes vehicles through many leading brands such as Audi and Porsche, and is one of the largest players in the industry, both in Europe and globally.

The Challenge.

VW’s multi-cloud journey was already underway with Microsoft, AWS and Google. On top of this, there was a new product platform on the horizon, as they had begun distributing services using Red Hat OpenShift. 

However, there was a challenge involved in adopting the new product platform, as it was proving difficult for VW to allocate costs from the new platform to individual departments. 

This meant that cloud costs were only seen at levels either too macro or micro to be useful.

The Need.

A primary driver of change at VW was the need to achieve cloud cost control. Knowing the what, where and who of their cloud spend would give them the ability to understand where cloud expenditure was taking place, and where it could be reduced.

As well as cost allocation, VW’s solution needed to accommodate RedHat OpenShift, alongside all of the three existing cloud providers in place. The solution therefore needed to be multi-cloud and flexible enough to accommodate multiple inputs.

In addition, cloud native guidance on how to sustainably reduce cloud waste was a major priority, seen alongside VW’s higher-level sustainability goals.

Enter IBM Multicloud Accelerator (formerly Nordcloud Klarity).

The Solution.

IBM Multicloud Accelerator (formerly Nordcloud Klarity) automates cloud cost management and allocation, making continuous cloud cost savings a reality.

The Multicloud teams worked together with VW developers to co-create a cost control solution, using the fundamental features of Multicloud Accelerator but tailored to meet the specific requirements that VW had.

With their custom Multicloud Accelerator solution, VW has a cloud cost management tool that consolidates information about cloud spend for cost allocation. This gives VW the ability to assign responsibility for specific costs to the relevant business context and identify areas where costs could be reduced.

On top of Multicloud Accelerator providing the data for internal chargebacks, the process is further aided by Multicloud Accelerator’s built-in rightsizing and savings suggestions, which enable waste reduction.

From a sustainability perspective, developers are incentivised to balance performance with waste-reduction through Multicloud Accelerator’s GreenOps feature. This feature shows the carbon footprint of resources, which adds a sustainability dimension – both environmental and economic – to their cloud management activities. 

A co-created cost control solution.

Klarity’s (now IBM Multicloud’s) developers worked closely with VW’s teams to tailor-make a solution that helps maximise cloud value, aligning VW’s cloud cost practices with their upcoming projects, needs and goals.

Using an agile, cloud-native approach, VW and Multicloud’s teams have shaped a sustainable cost control solution together. Some suggested features from the process have even been added to the Mutlcloud Accelerator product roadmap, because for the Multicloud Accelerator teams, being agile means integrating valuable learnings into our customer solutions.