A decade ago, when enterprises seriously started migrating their data and file storage to a single cloud service from servers sitting in data centers, it was a fairly simple process to keep track of offsite storage costs. Most companies had one cloud provider with billing based on total capacity along with network egress fees. One bill, a couple of line items, one payment, and that was it. Not so much anymore.

While a single cloud provider model still may be the case for many businesses, now it’s generally a lot more complicated than that here in 2021. The trend now is for IT to use a multiple-cloud or hybrid-cloud (combination of data center and cloud) setup for optimizing various workloads. In fact, multi-cloud and hybrid systems are what cloud-service providers in all areas – not only storage – are gearing up for as we enter 2022. This is the most significant storage trend IT has seen in the last decade.

Here is a point-by-point guide on how to understand and control cloud storage costs, whether you’re using one cloud or multiple clouds.

Google parent Alphabet plans in the coming weeks to stop using Oracle financial software and instead start using software from SAP, CNBC has learned.

Alphabet and Google core financial systems will move to SAP in May, Google told employees in an email that CNBC viewed. The move relates only to the software Google uses to track finances, and there’s no indication that the company is moving other systems off Oracle.

The change comes as Google and Oracle increasingly compete in the cloud computing market, and follows a similar move from cloud leader Amazon, which over the course of several years vastly reduced its use of Oracle software in favor of its own cloud services.

The switch does not appear to be tied to the longstanding lawsuit between Google and Oracle regarding Google’s use of Java code in the application programming interface for Google’s Android operating system. Earlier on Monday the Supreme Court ruled that Google’s copying of Java code was fair use.

Oracle competes with Google in selling organizations public cloud resources for hosting applications. For years Oracle refused to certify its longstanding database software for Google’s cloud, meaning that customers weren’t sure if they could host Oracle databases on Google’s cloud without running afoul of Oracle’s licensing policies.

“We don’t partner with Google, because we’re trying to compete with Google,” Ellison said in a 2018 meeting with analysts.

That lack of certification became a problem for Google’s cloud business as it sought to win business from large companies, many of which use Oracle database software. Consequently, Google began to focus more on deploying SAP’s database software in the cloud, said one person familiar with Google’s cloud business, who asked not to be named discussing confidential business matters. Plus, in 2020 Google introduced a way to run Oracle database on a bare-metal server that doesn’t include virtualization technology.

“Google Cloud actively enables Oracle’s customers to run their Oracle database workloads on Google Cloud through our Bare Metal Solution. But that’s entirely separate to our decision as an enterprise customer of financial software to transition our financial systems from Oracle to SAP,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC in an email. An Oracle representative declined to comment.

Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder, chairman and chief technology officer, regularly makes a show of how companies are agreeing to use Oracle’s software and services. In March Ellison spent one-third of Oracle’s 45-minute earnings call talking about customer activity, and he said Oracle would pick up more than half of SAP’s customers.

It’s not clear how much money Google has paid Oracle for the financial software. Still, Ellison has boasted about its business with Google. During a 2019 meeting with analysts he said that when Google catalogs vast amounts of information, that data is “actually sitting in Oracle databases.” That may still be the case, as this move only relates to Oracle’s financial software.

The effort to migrate off Oracle’s financial software required months of work and extensive engineering resources, a different person familiar with the move said.

Oracle shares dipped slightly on the news, while SAP shares rose, closing up 4.8%.

Many organisations are looking at how to make the most with less to spend in 2021.

The challenge is that there is a huge amount of fixed costs associated with supporting and maintaining existing enterprise IT. Reducing this expenditure may not be straightforward, as some enterprise products are reaching end of life, which means they will no longer be supported.

The recently updated Computer Weekly/TechTarget IT Priorities survey, which asked 120 IT professionals about their plans for the next 12 months, found that 57% are looking to embark on application modernisation initiatives. This suggests that, despite curbs on spending, CIOs and heads of IT will try to forge ahead with major enterprise IT initiatives in 2021.

However, organisations are highly likely to struggle to find the skills required to deploy new enterprise software.

For instance, recent Freedom of Information requests looking at the use of Oracle enterprise software in public sector organisations found that many are using older versions of Oracle products. Independent UK Oracle managed services provider Claremont canvassed 31 local government authorities and public sector bodies on their use of Oracle Enterprise Business Suite (EBS) and found that just 10% were running on R12.2, Oracle’s latest version of EBS. A further 10% said they were in the process of upgrading to R12.2.

Oracle has said that Premier Support for EBS R12.1 will end in December 2021, which means local authorities and public bodies that are not running on R12.2 have just a year to upgrade. Running an unsupported version means the organisation could face significant challenges by being left without guaranteed maintenance and upgrades, such as critical security patches, to their EBS software.

For instance, said Claremont, in April 2020, Oracle made a total of 405 security patches. Failure to upgrade could therefore leave local authorities, and their employees’ data, vulnerable to legislative and security issues, it warned.

Mark Vivian, CEO of Claremont, said: “Local authorities need to start the upgrade process now to avoid any compliance or security incidents, and to beat the rush to market. Only a small number of vendors are capable of assisting with upgrades, and as the average upgrade takes six to nine months, resource scarcity will be an issue for some organisations.”

It is a similar story for organisations using SAP as their main enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Due to a recent crackdown on unlicensed software, Finance needs to huddle with IT and make sure each and every piece of software being used by each and every employee has its own license.

Reason: Not doing so could cost you … to the tune of $150,000 per violation.

And the hunt is on for those who are violating, knowingly or unknowingly.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has ramped up enforcement efforts on behalf of software mega companies such as Apple, Adobe, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.

Here’s how to make sure you’re not exposed.