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Cloud has delivered on its promise of agility and scalability, but many organisations are finding that fast-growing cloud environments bring their own complexity – unused resources, overlapping networks, inconsistent security controls and costs that are harder to explain with every invoice. Most organisations have made it to cloud. The harder work is making cloud earn its keep once you are there.
We spoke to Mike Walls, Director of Cloud and AI Infrastructure at Datacom, about what practical cloud optimisation looks like across three very different AWS customers, why cleaner environments are easier to secure and govern, and how organisations can turn cloud from an escalating operating cost into a platform for transformation.
Moving workloads to the cloud was once seen as the destination. For many organisations, it has turned out to be the starting point.
After the initial migration, cloud environments can accumulate the same problems as any fast-growing technology estate: unused resources, overlapping networks, inconsistent security controls, unclear accountability and bills that become harder to explain.
Datacom’s 2025 Cloud and Infrastructure Report found that cloud is delivering agility and scalability, but many organisations are still grappling with complexity, skills gaps and disappointing returns on investment.
Cloud is delivering, but it needs more deliberate, ongoing management than most organisations planned for. Optimisation is the work of continually aligning architecture, spending, security and operational practices with what the business is trying to achieve.
For Bluecurrent, that meant tackling a complex inherited AWS environment while protecting a highly demanding data platform. The smart-metering business owns or manages about 2.8 million advanced meters across New Zealand and Australia, processing more than two billion meter intervals a day. Its AWS estate had grown to more than 60 accounts and 95 virtual private clouds, carrying overlapping network ranges, technical debt and governance gaps.
The response was not simply to turn off services. Working with Datacom, Bluecurrent standardised its network architecture, retired 16 virtual private clouds and reduced unnecessary infrastructure. It also deployed AWS Security Hub and GuardDuty across the organisation, expanded firewall coverage, reduced its EC2 fleet by 18 servers, and cut AWS Lambda compute use by 59 per cent.
The outcome was annualised savings of $637,694 between August and December 2025, even as the platform continued to grow.
Bluecurrent’s journey illustrates the broader opportunity for organisations. A cleaner environment is cheaper to operate, but it is also easier to secure, govern and evolve. At Bluecurrent, stronger financial discipline and standardised building blocks will support future AI and agentic workloads based on smart-meter data.
Mitre 10’s experience shows how optimisation can improve the working lives of IT teams as well as the balance sheet. The hardware retailer operates across 85 stores and is migrating from 67 separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to SAP, with AWS acting as the integration backbone for the transformation.
Over a four-month engagement, Mitre 10, AWS and Datacom streamlined workflows, improved network configurations and embedded stronger cloud-management practices, generating high six-figure savings.
The practical gains extended into operations and cyber security. Automating patching removed a manual task that had consumed roughly a week of a staff member’s time each month, releasing capacity for higher-value work. More consistent automated updates also reduced the risk that systems would remain exposed to known vulnerabilities. Optimisation, in other words, helped create a smaller, more manageable platform for a major business-modernisation programme.
Transpower offers a third model: optimisation as improved decision-making. Its AWS environment supports corporate and enterprise workloads including planning, customer engagement, analytics, a Red Hat OpenShift cluster and field-mobility services. As adoption expanded, the challenge was to govern, prioritise and optimise the environment without slowing delivery.
Datacom’s cloud team worked alongside Transpower’s cloud community of practice to connect strategy, governance and delivery. That included refining cloud frameworks, standards and reusable patterns, advising on cloud-native design, Infrastructure-as-Code and CI/CD, and prioritising work to deliver business value. Specialist support also covered cost optimisation, secure connectivity, integrations, permission management and Terraform refactoring.
The significant change was moving cloud conversations earlier. Rather than waiting for a formal application review, teams could assess options, constraints and likely requirements before work headed too far down one path. That is cloud optimisation at its most mature: not a retrospective clean-up, but a way to make better choices before cost, risk or rework are locked in.
Our work with these AWS customers and others points to a handful of practical actions you can take to begin optimising your cloud environments.
Make cloud costs attributable – Establish budgets, tagging and ownership so teams can see the cost implications of design and consumption choices.
Remove structural complexity – Consolidate overlapping networks, retire unused services and standardise architectural patterns before complexity becomes normalised.
Treat security as an optimisation outcome – Replace overly permissive or unmanaged resources with consistent controls, visibility and automated patching.
Automate repeatable operations – Use Infrastructure-as-Code, CI/CD and automation to reduce manual effort, configuration drift and vulnerability exposure.
Build optimisation into governance – Review workloads, architecture and priorities continuously, involving business and technical stakeholders early.
The common thread is that optimisation is not about depriving teams of cloud resources. It is about making sure every resource, process and architectural decision serves a clear business purpose.
Organisations that do this well turn cloud from an increasingly complex operating cost into a more resilient platform for transformation.
Moving to the cloud is often the start of the journey. As organisations grow, they need to balance performance, security, cost, compliance and innovation across increasingly complex environments. From cloud consulting and architecture through to managed cloud services and optimisation, Datacom helps organisations build cloud environments that support long-term business outcomes.
