Cloud computing are well-known services that have extremely grown in popularity in the last decade. Migrating to the cloud is touted as essential for business success, with all enterprises having either moved to or currently using it.
His popularity is not a secret, and has gained it due that almost any technology that can be delivered through the Internet is considered as cloud computing. With managed cloud services like Netflix or Spotify, essential IT resources such as storage, servers, security, and software can be easily deployed with minimal effort and expertise.
Cloud computing has exhibited unparalleled growth and innovation in the past decade, surpassing all other technological fields. Hundreds of new services come out annually, and thousands of updates are frequently pushed to the existing services.
IT can prioritize innovation over cost strategy when implementing cloud technology, potentially hindering companies from leveraging its benefits.
Poor practices, long-term contracts, architecture, and implementation decisions can cause companies to waste 25-30% of cloud spending.
I used to think that “everything in this life has a solution”, and cloud computing costs aren’t the exception, even if we got critical environments up and running.
Cloud Cost savings strategies
- Savings starts with planning and designing
- Assess correctly your services
- Use cloud cost-savings benefits
- Optimize and monitor spending as a continuous process
- Leverage knowledge from experts
Savings starts with planning and designing
Planning costs and usage of cloud computing services may seem daunting at first, but keeping it simple can make it easier to manage.
- Start by breaking down the costs into three main resources: Compute, Network, and Storage.
- Plan the compute you will use in your environments: Persistent computing, temporary compute, or hybrid computing.
- Design your solution having these aspects in mind: Scalability, flexibility, and business continuity.
- Use the cloud service calculator to estimate your initial costs, i.e. AWS Pricing Calculator or Microsoft Azure Pricing Calculator
- Choose the right cost model you will be using in your environments. i.e. AWS has several types of plans: Pay-As-You-Go, Reserved Instances, Savings Plan, and Spot Instances.
If you already have services running in the cloud, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t take advantage of the planning or design steps. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, cloud computing is evolving and publishing new services almost every day. That’s why is important to have a clear and understandable plan and design for the existing or future services.
Assess correctly your services
To make the most of cloud providers’ saving plans, it’s essential to have visibility of the resources you are currently or will be using in the future.
- Start doing an assessment of your current resources.
- Tag your existing resources. i.e. Tagging AWS resources
- Use your billing to rectify your initial assessment
Never assume you already know you’re resources, always double-check your billing, and do continuous assessments of your environments.
Use cloud cost savings benefits
Cost-saving in cloud computing often involves reducing the amount of resources or downsizing existing ones, but this is just one strategy and not a definitive solution.
There are several myths that we use to demystify with the clients that we work on. Cloud computing is now cost-competitive with on-premise environments. Also, downsizing or eliminating idle resources is not a sustainable cost-saving strategy.
To benefit from cloud computing, acknowledge no fixed recipe exists but documented strategies can help achieve goals.
- Budget Control – everything should start at this point. Every company that it’s working with cloud computing should start by having a clear budget for cloud services, and ensure that teams are aware of this budget. i.e. In AWS Cost Managements, you could create a Budget, and alerts are sent whenever the budget limit is exceeded.
- Resource sizing – as I mentioned, resizing is not the final solution, but ensuring that we’re using the correct amount of compute, storage, and networking, it’s crucial to make smart commitments with the cloud service provider. Reduce overprovisioned resources, delete unused or idle resources, and start using autoscaling solutions for those where you know that the amount of resources should be flexible.
- Use the cloud costs models – cloud services are evolving every day, and that’s good for us as customers because that evolution is transformed into flexible cost models that help us to reduce fixed service costs. AWS and Microsoft Azure have different cost models such as Pay-As-You-Go, Prepaid/Fixed Subscriptions, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, Bring your own license, and a long etc. Ensure that you’re using the model that better fits your needs.
Optimize and monitor spending as a continuous process
Optimization and monitoring are two topics usually intended for compute, databases, or other types of resources not related to costs, but in cloud computing services, optimizing and monitoring costs should be part of a continuous procedure.
AWS has the Cost Management console, from which you could view and manage your AWS costs in real-time. Features like AWS Budgets help to create and monitor a fixed budget for all your accounts, or specifically for your Reserved Instances or Savings Plans, or AWS Cost Anomaly Detection which continuously monitors your current usage and costs to catch any spike in your current services.
There are several solutions of third-party cost management solutions that you may want to consider in your planning:
Leverage knowledge from experts
Is well known that most cloud providers usually don’t offer all the advisory on the saving-costs topic, and commonly companies found them selfs involved in a hopeless situation where they’re trying to find the final solution to their costs situation.
Tecbeats could lead your company to take advantage of all the benefits of having services in the cloud. With our expertise and advisory, we could lead you to leverage these tools and give you the opportunity to start saving, optimizing and automating your costs.
As Tecbeats, we’re a growing team of development experts and thought leaders—full of personality, minus the ego. We wear many hats and dedicate ourselves to helping companies like yours grow.
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