FAQ
Before open questions
turn into risks
What is Cloudguardian?
Cloudguardian is an expert-led managed service by BE-X. In German, it is called Wolkenwächter. It continuously checks your cloud environments for technical health, security, compliance and costs, and provides qualified recommendations instead of raw data.
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What problem does Cloudguardian solve?
Every company must continuously monitor its growing cloud environments from a technical, security and commercial perspective. Existing tools and processes from the on-premises world are often no longer suitable, and building your own control mechanisms ties up valuable internal resources. Cloudguardian takes on this task as an external expert service.
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What benefits does Cloudguardian offer?
Cloudguardian gives you: (1) immediate relief for your IT team through external expertise, (2) a continuously growing catalogue of best-practice checks that benefits all customers, (3) proactive information about findings instead of reactive troubleshooting and (4) predictable monthly costs without high upfront investment in tools or staff.
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Is Cloudguardian a tool or a service?
Cloudguardian is a managed service. You receive not only automated checks, but also the expert knowledge of our team. We configure the checks, assess findings and filter out irrelevant alerts, so you receive only relevant, qualified information.
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How is Cloudguardian different from tools such as Dynatrace, Datadog or Avantra?
These products are powerful standalone SaaS monitoring platforms. They require dedicated specialists for implementation and operation, and each covers a specific area in depth. Cloudguardian is a managed service: you receive not only the check logic, but also the expertise and support around it, without separate tool licence costs or internal implementation effort.
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Why should we not simply handle monitoring ourselves with internal scripts or native tools?
Honestly: you can. Our experience shows that self-built solutions require internal skills, setup time and ongoing maintenance. They are rarely expanded systematically and usually cover only parts of the relevant check areas. With Cloudguardian, you use a continuously growing, field-tested rule set shaped by real customer experience, without tying up valuable internal resources and with an external expert view.
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What exactly does Cloudguardian include?
Cloudguardian includes ongoing checks and proactive alerting based on a defined check catalogue. It covers four areas: costs, security, governance and technology.
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What is the check catalogue?
At the heart of Cloudguardian is the check catalogue: a structured framework of check routines that makes monitoring focused, transparent and extendable. The current scope of standard checks can be viewed at any time in the customer portal. The catalogue is continuously expanded. Every customer automatically benefits from new standard checks at no extra cost.
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What exactly is checked on the platforms?
Checks are carried out across four dimensions: (1) Costs: cost and usage data, savings potential and unexpected cost increases. (2) Security: identities, permissions and security-relevant configurations. (3) Governance: naming conventions, defined structures and traceable standards. (4) Technology: errors, backups, resources, performance, certificates and relevant interfaces.
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We already use native cloud tools such as SAP Cloud ALM or Azure Monitor. Why do we need Cloudguardian?
Native management tools are important, but they work in silos: Azure does not see SAP, and vice versa. Depending on your platform mix, you may need up to 14 different tools to cover technology, security and costs. Cloudguardian closes this gap, harmonises cross-platform monitoring and relieves your team from manually consolidating this information.
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Which platforms can Cloudguardian monitor?
Cloudguardian currently covers cloud, identity, SAP, business and AI platforms. This includes hyperscalers such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, identity management with Microsoft Entra ID and Okta, SAP with SAP BTP, SAP Integration Suite / CPI, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Cloud ALM and SAP ABAP, business applications such as Salesforce and AI with Vertex AI / Gemini.
Platform coverage is continuously developed and expanded based on specific customer requirements.
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How will Cloudguardian develop further?
Cloudguardian is continuously being expanded: the check catalogue is constantly extended with new checks, and additional cloud platforms are connected.
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What is not included in Cloudguardian?
Cloudguardian provides monitoring and alerting. Detailed application debugging, transaction-level root-cause analysis for cost deviations and independent correction of findings in your environment are not included. These services can be commissioned separately as consulting packages.
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Is expansion to additional platforms planned?
Yes. Platform support is continuously analysed based on customer needs. The goal is to expand Cloudguardian step by step to further relevant cloud and SaaS platforms.
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How will I learn about findings in my environment?
Findings are proactively reported by email to your defined contacts. In addition, you receive a monthly proactive update (“Bi-Weekly Update”) with topic-based status updates and recommendations.
Process
How does onboarding work?
Onboarding has three steps: (1) BE-X sends an onboarding catalogue with the required technical information. (2) The customer works through it and provides the required data. We are happy to help with questions. (3) We set up monitoring, run a test and then take care of ongoing oversight for your cloud environments.
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Do we receive automated reports or dashboards?
Not by design in the current version. We focus on quality and relevance instead of automated reporting. Rather than creating “data graveyards”, we establish a personal, value-adding communication rhythm with qualified information. A customer dashboard is planned as a later expansion stage.
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What effort is required from our side for onboarding?
The effort required from your side is low. You provide the defined read access and name your contacts for ongoing communication. Most of the setup is carried out by our team.
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Do you need admin rights on our systems?
No. For the managed service, we only need defined read access to relevant data according to the check catalogue. Highly sensitive customer credentials are never hard-coded, but securely retrieved from a vault at runtime.
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Do you see our business data?
No. Cloudguardian analyses only infrastructure metadata and configurations, not the content of your business data. Example: we check that a database exists, how large it is and who has access, but not the data stored inside it.
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How is our data protected?
BE-X uses suitable technical and organisational measures under Art. 32 GDPR to protect your data. The specific measures are regulated in the Data Processing Agreement (DPA). Raw source data is stored only where required for a specific check case (privacy by design).
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Are standard checks included in the price?
Yes. The Cloudguardian service includes access to all standard checks in the current check catalogue. New standard checks developed over time are available to all existing customers at no extra cost. The full current check catalogue can be viewed in the customer portal.
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How long does the contract run?
The contract begins on the 1st day of the month following signature by both contracting parties and is concluded for an indefinite period.
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What are the notice periods?
The contract can be terminated by either party in writing with 30 days' notice to the end of any quarter. Email to vertrag@wolkenwaechter.at is sufficient.
