Today we are going to talk about cloud cost optimisation because this is such a crucial part of managing your online operations.
We are going to talk about the financial aspect of it. if you know how to optimise cloud costs then it will greatly impact your business so that you can better utilise your cloud budget.
We will tell you how to not sacrifice on performance but also have cost-effective cloud solutions that comply with the best security requirements and much more.
Cloud cost management is not really an art but it is about paying attention to the small details and trying out cloud expense reduction a little bit at a time. This will add up to save you a lot of money.
But before we tell you how to manage your cloud cost efficiency, we are actually going to understand what is cloud cost optimisation. If you have a grasp on the concept of cloud costs then you will understand the strategies for cloud cost savings.
Here Is Cloud Optimisation Simply Described
You might have a website or you might run a few apps or software and those operations need cloud resources. And the thing with cloud resources is that they come in all shapes and sizes.
You can get something that a multinational company uses and you can hope to spend millions of dollars on it or you can get something a start-up uses and you can save a lot of money.
Optimising cloud infrastructure costs is all about balancing your needs and not compromising on performance in the best way possible.
That is why there are even books on proper cloud optimisation best practices that will help with cloud resource management and cloud resource optimisation.
So let us look at the important things to keep in mind and important tips for reducing cloud expenses and the best kind of cloud cost analysis as well as cloud cost optimisation.
But before we do that, we need to understand an important difference because these two terms are used interchangeably but they actually mean something different.
We are talking about cloud cost management and cloud cost optimisation.
Difference Between Cloud Cost Optimisation and Cloud Cost Management
When we talk about cloud cost management it is not about making sure you do not overspend because everyone does cloud cost management even if they do not know what it means.
Cloud cost management is just analysing your cloud services and making sure you are certain that they are working. It is about just tracking your cloud activity and managing it so that it works well.
But when you want cloud cost management to bring you results for maximizing cloud ROI, that is when you do cloud cost optimisation.
Cloud cost optimisation is when you think about your business needs and make sure that you are not overspending.
People think it is just about saving money but that is not the case because it is a little bit more complicated. It is about making sure that all your cloud needs are taken care of within your budget.
That means if you can make sure to optimise your cloud services in such a way that you can maximize your profit then that might even result in more investment.
That is why when we talk about optimising AWS/Azure/GCP costs, we mean making sure that you are getting the best results from your cloud services and managing them effectively.
Here Are Important Tips to Optimise Cloud Costs Effectively
Understand Your Requirements
One of the first and most important things you should do if you want to reduce your cloud costs or rather optimise them is to simply understand what you need.
Understanding your needs might seem simple but it is the first and the most crucial step to cloud cost optimisation.
In fact, if you do not want to go through this yourself then you should simply hire consultants who will help you understand what kind of cloud framework and what kind of services you need that ensures growth but is not very hard on your budget.
There are certain factors that you should consider when you are doing the assessment of your cloud needs.
Plan Your Budget Accordingly
The second most important thing you must do when you opt for any cloud computing services or any other kind of cloud service is to set the budget
When it comes to cloud services you simply cannot go as you please and get the services you like because they are expensive.
That is why you need to do the planning perfectly and in order to do that you need to have everyone on your team on board.
You need to have the software engineers as well as the website developers and even the team leads and get them in a meeting in order to plan the budget.
You should listen to everyone and then create a budget that accommodates all the needs and gets you all the services that you need.
Planning is also important because you need to choose the services because things like AWS have multiple cloud services and instance types under a single umbrella, some might be well suited for you and others not
Do The Right Selections
There are a lot of choices you need to make when you are getting any kind of cloud service. For instance, one of the choices that you need to make could be the type of storage you get.
Different cloud services have different tiers of service. They might have something for beginners and intermediate as well as professional users.
We always prefer AWS because it is one of the finest when it comes to cloud storage. You can choose the subscription and storage options that you want.
If you need a lot of storage then you can choose S3 because that will be enough for you as it is unlimited storage but you must also keep in mind the different tires.
Free Up Idle Services and Resources
Cloud cost optimization is not just about knowing which services to get but it is also about knowing which services to not get.
There might be services in your inventory that are not being used and we like to call them idle resources.
These are the resources that you might have opted for previously because you thought you had a need for them.
These can also be resources that you might have chosen because of high traffic during the peak season of your business and operations.
And it is quite normal to forget about those resources after you have not used them for a while.
That is why you should consider sitting down with your software engineers and your network specialists and finding out which resources are simply not being used.
You should then opt out of those resources and only opt in for them during peak season or when you need them because you are going to get charged for them.
Optimisation is about understanding your needs and managing your needs but most importantly organising them so that you know what to use and what not to use.
Always Use Reserved Instances
The thing about cloud computing is that there is a value for commitment because it also helps computing providers get a guarantee of service.
This means there are going to be options for reserved instances. You can think of them like your prepaid mobile connection.
If you subscribed to these instances then you can get heavy discounts. This is also similar to other consumer services such as VPNs.
Cloud computing service providers provide almost as high as 80% discounts if you commit to use that service for more than a year.
Spot Instances Can Be Helpful
Just like reserved instances, there are certain kinds of instances that can be compared to a clearance sale for cloud service providers.
These are called spot instances that cloud computing providers sell at the very last moment. Every popular cloud provider sells them from AWS to Google Cloud as well as IBM Cloud and Azure.
Some of these instances have variable prices and can change depending on the auction time and other resources by providers can have fixed pricing.
They also have different shutdown lead times and it all depends on you if you have batch jobs so that you can use them.
Cost Management Console
If you want to find out cost anomalies then all you have to do is monitor your cost management console.
This will help you get cost predictions for future service subscriptions and it will also let you look at your budget and find out if you are overspending.
This is a very important tool in the right hands and it can definitely help you understand your spending behaviours and help you optimise the areas which need revising.
You will also be able to understand if you are spending too much in a particular season or if you should be spending more when you are not doing it.
Invest In Third Opinion
One of the most important things you can do when it comes to cloud cost optimisation is to invest in a third opinion.
When we talk about a third opinion there are primarily two options for you and both are equally good.
One of the options is to invest in a cloud optimization app or service provided by tech giants and these services will actually help you bridge the gap between the forecasted spending and the actual spending and utilisation.
But you also need to do a bit of learning and a bit of reading if you want to utilise these services and apps.
The other option is quite straightforward and it is to hire consultants whose job it will be to suggest you the best approach possible.
Sometimes they are offered by IT companies and sometimes they work as individuals. You should do a little bit of research before you hire these professionals
If you get yourself the right kind of professional then they will completely overhaul your cloud utilisation.
Avoid Data Transfer When Possible
One of the ways in which you can optimise cloud costs is to avoid unnecessary fees. One of the fees that can drastically increase your expenses is going to be transfer fees.
This is when you need to migrate your data from platforms. This is also the case when you need to migrate your data from one location to another.
Sometimes your applications might need data on a regular basis that you have kept in the cloud and transfer fees might be associated with the data transfers.
That is why you should move your applications to the cloud as well so that there is no transfer of data and so that you can avoid these unnecessary fees.
Apart from all these optimisations, there are other things you can do such as making sure that you save money while purchasing licences for cloud software.
People often get a licence and simply forget to use that software but that should not be the case and if possible, you should always opt for subscription models because it will be a lot cheaper.
You must also optimise the cloud costs and every stage of the software development life cycle. This will help you get better control over cloud costs.
You should also heavily invest in monitoring software so that you are always a step ahead of your budget so that you can plan accordingly.
One of the other important things you can do is to inculcate this idea of cost optimisation among all your coworkers and employees so that they think about optimisation.
But if you feel like all these steps might be too complicated then you are right because they are definitely above the familiarity of many common developers.
You might miss out on optimisations that are crucial and you might misunderstand optimisations as well.
But you do not need to worry because we are here for you. We are Think To Share IT Solutions and we are one of the best names when it comes to cloud computing in India.
We have been utilising cloud resources for years now and we will help you optimise your cloud services for you. We also do cloud cost optimisation consultancy where we will not do the optimisations but will simply assist you in doing them by suggesting the necessary changes.
We are also one of the finest names when it comes to web designing and development in India and we do nearly every kind of IT-related work and provide nearly every type of IT services.
We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do and we would love to help your digital dreams come true.
Cloud Cost Optimisation FAQ
How can cloud computing reduce costs?
Cloud computing is genuinely amazing and it will help you reduce your costs by a lot. The thing with computing is that it is very power hungry and it needs a lot of infrastructure. That means a lot of investment and capital spending
Cloud computing is not just about buying a graphics card but it is about huge spending as well as servers and things like networking hardware. If you are investing in your own hardware and you need to move around then it will be quite difficult but that is not the case with cloud computing.
Then we come to operating that hardware because you need to hire people to take care of those processing-intensive hardware. Then comes the fact that it will take up a lot of power which will give you very high energy bills.
But with cloud computing, you can get all that at a fraction of the cost. Instead of doing all that you can get all the functionality on your desktop computer without even a graphics card or even on your phone.
Cloud computing is just a more practical and better approach.
What is cloud pricing optimization?
Cloud pricing optimization or cloud cost optimization is when you about your cloud resources and try to manage them to the best of your abilities so that you get the best kind of efficiency with them
Sometimes people get more resources than they actually need and they are unable to do proper resource allocation. Other times people might go over budget when it comes to getting cloud instances or they might waste spot instances.
Cloud optimisation is all about understanding your needs and assessing your costs and balancing all of them so that you do not sacrifice performance.
It is not just about saving money but it is making sure that you get all the work done within your budget while seeing to it that you are not wasting money.
What is a cloud cost strategy?
Cloud cost strategy is when you actually create a strategy after you implement cloud cost optimisation.
In order to do that you need to bring everyone in your team to the discussion and figure out all the necessary resources and find out if they are being allocated properly.
You should also create a checklist of items and find out if they are being followed. It is also about finding discounts on your already existing services and making sure that you get the best deal without sacrificing your cloud plans.
We would recommend you to go through the entire blog about cloud cost optimisation so that you too can formulate a proper strategy.