Are you seeing the returns you expected

from your cloud investments? If your

answer is no, you're not alone. Cloud

adoption was supposed to speed up

innovation and improve agility. But

without a unified approach to managing

infrastructure and security, those

benefits can slip out of reach. When

teams operate in silos without a formal

cloud program, cloud costs rise, tools

become fragmented, and complexity takes

over. Visibility suffers and that slows

everything down. From app development

and innovation to ROI. The potential of

cloud is real, but unlocking it takes

more than just migration. It takes a

thoughtful connected strategy for how

you build and manage cloud

infrastructure and systems. Let's talk

about how you can optimize cloud

operations and start seeing returns.

I recently spoke with a platform leader

who shared how their team was blindsided

by cloud overspend. 6 months into a

major product rollout, they discovered

nearly 35% of their cloud budget was

wasted on orphaned resources and ad hoc

infrastructure builds. This story is not

that unusual. Three out of four

companies are seeing inefficiencies rise

thanks to challenges like

overprovisioning, tool sprawl, and

limited visibility. The impact of these

challenges is real. 40% of IT leaders

say lack of visibility and control is

holding back their cloud optimization

efforts. And 70% of companies are

struggling to hire cloud talent with the

right experience.

That puts more pressure on existing

teams, slows down projects, and drives

up operational costs. So now IT leaders

are being asked to scale faster while

solving these challenges at the same

time. But when operations are

fragmented, it often creates more chaos

and clarity, and that makes it even

harder to deliver real ROI.

To truly optimize cloud operations, we

need to stop treating infrastructure and

security as afterthoughts.

The old model, build, deploy, monitor,

leaves gaps. It may get apps out faster,

but it also creates delays, risks, and

scaling issues. What's needed is a shift

to proactive life cyclebased management

where infrastructure and security are

integrated from day zero all the way

through to day end. At Hashi Corp, we

help organizations do just that by

unifying infrastructure and security

under a single control plane. The

result, streamlined operations, stronger

security, and more time to focus on

delivering value. Optimizing cloud

operations is a key part of doing cloud

right. But as organizations scale,

things can get messy and expensive very

fast. Tackling that chaos takes the

right strategy and the right tools,

especially when it comes to

infrastructure and security. Managing

cloud cost isn't just about cutting

spend. It's about making sure every

dollar drives efficiency and supports

your business's goals. But without

visibility, that's tough. Teams often

build custom infrastructure that's hard

to track, expensive to maintain, and

inconsistent across environments.

Onboarding slows down, innovation

stalls, and teams get stuck juggling

fragmented tools and compliance

requirements. It can feel like you have

to choose between controlling costs or

moving fast, but you don't have to. A

better approach starts with a

standardized platform that's managed

through a central control plane. One

that gives developers built-in cost

controls and reusable modules that lets

them deploy faster with security already

baked in. This provides a self-service

developer platform that empowers

developers to develop quickly and freely

while allowing security teams to easily

maintain governance and compliance.

All while lowering overhead and giving

managers better visibility over how

resources are being used. As a result,

visibility is no longer a manual

dashboard, but has become a daily

decision-making tool. Now teams can make

smarter decisions that optimize

resources and prevent budget overruns

while ensuring optimizations are having

the desired effect. The result, smarter

spend, faster innovation, and confident

scaling, all without compromising speed

or security. The next area we need to

think about is efficient cloud and

resource utilization. Many organizations

lack visibility in their cloud overhead

costs and without proper controls, these

can spiral quickly. Teams often spend

more time learning and managing

fragmented tooling than delivering

applications and innovation. And custom

one-off infrastructure, what we call

snowflake deployments, drive up costs

and make scaling a real challenge. The

result, overprovisioning and the

inability to scale rapidly has led to an

average of 67% annual increases in

budgets for cloud spend. This means

higher spend, slower delivery, and a

constant sense of starting from scratch

with every new project. So, how do you

fix it? First, you need to streamline

cloud operations and standardize

infrastructure so teams can eliminate

inefficiencies and manage resources

proactively. With a central control

plane, you can automate infrastructure

and security workflows using pre-built

templates and enforce consistent

infrastructure patterns from the start.

That means faster provisioning,

repeatable deployments, and reusable

modules that scale with you. Developers

get the speed and flexibility they need

while security and ops teams maintain

the control and compliance they require,

all without the usual friction and in a

costefficient manner. This approach

consolidates tooling, eliminates

Snowflake deployments, and gives you

better governance and cost efficiency.

Now you get more control, less

complexity, and no trade-offs between

speed, security, and costs. Lastly,

let's talk about resilience. I recently

spoke with a security team that was

stuck in constant firefighting, manual

secrets rotations, inconsistent access

controls, and reactive governance. It

was exhausting and expensive. When

processes aren't standardized,

complexity skyrockets. Decentralized

secrets management and manual workflows

increase the risk of breaches and eat up

time and resources. Improper access

controls can lead to costly security

incidents.

And inefficient workflows without proper

governance often leave resources unused,

misallocated, or misconfigured, further

driving up cloud costs. Without strong

policy enforcement, teams face increased

overhead, more human error, and greater

risk. All of this adds up to potential

outages, security breaches, and serious

financial and reputational damage. The

fix: centralize and automate. Teams are

reducing risk and complexity by

standardizing and managing secrets,

access, and policy enforcement through a

central control plane. With centralized

secrets and least privileged access,

security becomes consistent and

scalable.

Automation helps detect drift and fix

misconfigurations before they cause real

world problems. And with built-in

redundancy and recovery, systems stay

resilient even when things go wrong.

Instead of reacting to issues, teams are

proactively scaling secure, reliable

infrastructure they can confidently use

to drive increased development velocity.

These aren't one-off wins. They're what

happens when teams adopt a unified

control plane for infrastructure and

security. At Hashi Corp, we help you

build the foundation for efficient,

secure, and costoptimized cloud

operations. With a standardized,

automated approach, you can reduce

waste, regain visibility, and unlock the

full value of your cloud investments.

Want to learn more? Check out the

resources below, and let's talk about

how you can do cloud right. Thanks for

watching.