Nowadays, many companies or maybe even personal use are using Cloud Spend Optimization technology and cloud computing. To put it simply, nowadays you often use cloud storage such as iCloud, Google Cloud, OneDrive, and many other types of cloud technologies that you use.
In the world of cloud computing, you may have heard about cloud spend optimization services. If you still don’t understand what it is and how important it is to use this one service in a business or company, be it a company in the SME class or one that already has many branches, here we will discuss how important it is to use cloud spend optimization.
Table of Contents
What is Cloud Spend Optimization?
Starting from understanding, cloud spend optimization is the process of reducing your overall cloud expenditure by identifying mismanaged resources, eliminating waste, reserving capacity for higher discounts, and the right Sizing computing service to scale usage.
So, of course, those of you who already understand that expenses are the core factor that determines the success of a business in any industry. The better the optimization of spending, the better the resulting Return on Investment (RoI).
The expense or cost factor means a lot to the IT industry, where every penny equals a large investment share of the organization’s IT spending.
Cloud computing is one area where most IT companies brainstorm about the need for cost optimization and cost management.
Although cloud services are known for their wide range of offerings, they are often discussed in terms of maintenance and other forms of expense. Sometimes there are companies that simply charge a monthly fee “What matters a lot of features”. It is not wrong, but if there are many features that have not been used for a long time, of course it is a waste where the more features, the more expensive the subscription fee will be.
Best Way to Cloud Spend Optimization
What should be done before hiring a cloud spend optimization service? To achieve cloud cost management and optimization, a detailed understanding of the following key factors is required:
Understanding Cloud Costs
- Evaluate cloud costs
It is important to use a cloud adoption strategy to plan and assess your cloud requirements, which in turn helps you evaluate costs and plan cloud expenses.
- Vendor billing model
Determine the service you want to approach with the cloud solution provider. Then analyze, compare, and define vendors by region and service-specific costs. Choosing the right vendor at an early stage avoids vendor lock-in problems.
- Routine monitoring
Continuous monitoring of cloud infrastructure requirements is key to cloud cost management. Since cloud vendors offer pay-as-you-go services, it is important to note that they are supported by sufficient requirements, which otherwise would incur large expenses.
Track Waste and Optimize Costs
- Orphaned Resources
Ensure that no resources are unused or simply stopped unattended. They can cause unnecessary expenses.
| Different types of Orphaned Resources | Content |
| Orphaned Snapshots | Expired snapshots |
| Orphaned Volumes | Amazon EBS, Azure Virtual Disks and Block Storage in GCP, etc. |
| Unassociated IPs | Elastic IPs in AWS, Static Public IPs on Azure and Static external IP addresses on GCP |
| Load Balancer | Load balancer without instances |
| Unused Machine Images | AMIs in AWS and images on GCP |
| Orphaned Object Storage | S3 buckets on AWS, Azure Block Bobs and Google Cloud Storage |
- More Resources Provided
Make sure to select the resources that are not available in excess (larger in size) than necessary.
| Types of Resources Provided Excessively | Content |
| Example | Amazon EC2, Azure Virtual Machines, Google Compute Engine |
| Volume | Amazon EBS, Azure Virtual Disks and Block Storage on GCP |
| Database Warehouses | Amazon Redshift, Google Cloud Datastore and Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse |
| Relational Databases | Amazon RDS, Azure SQL and Google Cloud SQL |
- Unused Resources
Identify the resources you want to run around the clock and the resources for a limited period of time.
| Types of Idle Resources | Contents |
| Instances | Amazon EC2, Azure Virtual Machines and Google Compute Engine |
| Load Balancer | Identify load balancer instances or instances running 24X7 unnecessarily |
| Relational Databases | Amazon RDS, Azure SQL and Google Cloud SQL |
| Scale Groups | Auto Scaling Groups on AWS, Azure Scale Sets and Google Scale Groups |
- Reserved Instances (RI)
| RI solution type | Solution |
| RI Expires | Extend and review RIs regularly |
| RI that is unused | Track your RI usage and sell unused on vendor marketplaces |
Strategy
- Resource Identification
Identify and mark resources by use and ownership. Doing this helps you design the layout for overall resource use. Identifying the owner of each resource helps you understand the expenses required for individual resources.
- Visibility
Make resources (running and reserved) visible to all users in the organization. This is to avoid sample repetitions and drift to other services.
- Fix Budget
The identification of the resource and its increased visibility makes it easy to plan budgets for individual accounts based on actual usage. This helps in planning the overall cloud budget.
- Resource List
Complete the list of resources required for your cloud environment. Allow only certain sizes or support specific instances. This way, you can spend only on the resources you need and ignore those that are not approved.
- Scheduling
Save over 70 percent of costs by turning off unused recurring instances. Allow those who need 24/7 functionality and schedule the rest as needed.
- Pricing Based on Region
It’s important to note that cloud costs vary by region by about 60 percent. So, keep track of your territory and workload running there. Comparing and analyzing costs by region can help you optimize future spending.
- Storage Management
Take regular snapshots of your storage as a backup and delete unused large volumes. Remember remember! Storage volume incurs hidden costs.
NETWORK DATA SYSTEM is ready to help you with cloud spend optimization. With NETDATA as a partner in your business, various IT-related matters can be completed perfectly, and the results are satisfying. This is because NETDATA has reliable, professional, and experienced workers, one of which is about cloud spend optimization. You can contact us for further questions. Thank you
