Cloud Cost Optimization
The term ‘cloud’ has gained maximum popularity in the recent decade. Due to the cost-conscious approach followed by IT departments, cloud computing has become a new trend.
Starting from moving workloads to the cloud to enjoying additional services for the deployment, the cloud platform comes effectively handy.
Although cloud computing is an excellent approach to save some bucks, still these can be extremely expensive. You might find yourself paying extra bills at the end of the month.
So, to minimize additional cloud costs, cloud cost optimization is the need of the hour.
What actually is Cloud Cost Optimization?
Cloud cost optimization basically refers to decreasing the overall cloud costs while maximizing the value. And, the overall costs can only be reduced by appropriately utilizing the resources, reserving instances for better discounts, removing waste, and Right-Sizing the given services.
The modern cloud-centric world is benefited from the Cloud platform, undoubtedly. From unlimited scalability to reasonable IT services costs, the organizations take great advantage of Cloud.
Plus, the cloud services costs are calculated in accordance with the resources used. It means you only pay for the necessary resources and not for the inactive ones.
However, the scenario is not the same with all brands offering cloud services. Some cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services charge for the given resources, no matter these are used or not. And, this is the reason maximum cloud costs are wasted.
So, to reduce the wastage and save some bucks, cloud cost optimization, as a technique, assists trimming down the overall spends.
How to Reduce Cloud Cost Optimization Costs?
Truth be told, fewer costs and better services are the only reason organizations move to Cloud. Migrating workloads to cloud platforms is a significant approach to reduce added cloud costs.
From single to multi-cloud environment, scalability, and other IT costs, there are a whole lot of things to consider.
Organizations these days recommend using multi-cloud environments to add more scalability to the infrastructure.
For organizations, it is crucial to determine what’s genuinely required from the offered services. The more you use the services and resources, the higher will be the bill.
And, as said, some web services even charge for the resources which are ordered but not used.
To reduce cloud cost optimization bills, the below discussed factors might help.
Here we go!
- Determining and Removing Mismanaged Resources
The optimization process becomes trouble-free when you can quickly determine mismanaged resourceson the cloud.
Unused, but present, resources on the cloud platform result in additional charges at the month-end bill. Even the added storage resources, which are no longer used, lead to extra bills.
Identifying such unused or mismanaged resources at the start should be part of the cost-reducing strategy.
And, of course, such unused resources should be removed right away to reduce the overall bills.
- Right-Sizing- Going with Necessary Requirements
Right-sizing refers to modifying and using computing services efficiently. It’s the best approach to using exactly what you need for the business.
When using a cloud environment, no matter private or multi-cloud (public cloud), right-sizing is an absolute must.
Most organizations follow this technique to ensure no resources and computing services are wasted. And, only the correct sized resources are allotted for the specific workload.
To trim down cloud costs and enhance performance, right-sizing works the best.
- Reserved Instances (RIs)
Investing in Reserved Instances is probably the best method to reduce cloud costs. These are basically the discounts, which help to reduce higher upfront payments.
When working on cloud cost optimization, investing in RIs becomes necessary.
You can purchase RIs from reliable platforms such as AWS Reserved Instances, Azure Reserved VM Instances, or other 3rd party service providers.
It is necessary to discover the past usage before investing in RIs. If these are of no use in the coming 1-3 years, then avoiding the purchase would be better.
- Storage Capacity and Bandwidth
Organizations choose cloud for unlimited scalability, increased bandwidth, and effortless storage security.
But, the thing is, these all factors increase the overall costs in the end.
So, it is better to identify the required storage capacity, bandwidth, data transfer speed, and access & retrieval requests.
Cloud comes with various options, including storage, data backup, and data transfer (moving data from one position to another).
Going for the right sizing storage capacity tools required for the infrastructure would certainly help.
To reduce the overall cloud costs, going with right-sizing tools would be the ultimate choice. The right sized storage, memory, bandwidth, database, and computing services help accomplish elevated performance.
There You Have It!
Organizations opting for cloud computing are benefited with multiple benefits. That said, it is necessary to go for cloud cost optimization techniques to reduce cloud bills.
When organizations go for the multi-cloud environment or private cloud, it is necessary to identify your business needs first; so as to reduce the extra spends.