By Jessica Day, Senior Director for
Marketing Strategy at Dialpad
In
2021, cloud computing is no longer the high-tech buzzword it was a few years
ago, but an everyday reality for organizations small and large.
Microsoft,
Google, and Amazon all operate large data centers to power their cloud
services, and a number of cloud computing systems have been developed that
function at a layer between your business and the physical data host.
There
are cloud platforms for hardware developers,
cloud providers catered to Linux-based IT services, and various
industry-specific cloud services. In fact, no matter what your business's
computing needs might be, the chances are there's a cloud-based solution out
there.
With
companies becoming more and more reliant on this technology, it can be easy for
costs to start snowballing. To help keep things in budget, check out these
eight tips for managing your cloud expenses.
1. Plan Ahead Based on Data Analysis
When
developing your cloud strategy, it pays to plan ahead and make decisions based
on a thorough cost/benefit analysis.
Start
by mapping out your current resource usage, then estimate what each service's
requirement will be for the year ahead. Some companies will require large
amounts of file storage, while others will prioritize the running of their business communication tools.
Once
you have an understanding of your predicted requirements, use this information
to purchase pre-paid resources, helping you to save on your total expenditure.
2. Rightsize Your Cloud Configuration When Migrating from Legacy Data
Practices
Rightsizing
is the practice of anticipating data storage needs to save on unnecessary
costs. With legacy data centers, the practice of overprovisioning when
deploying new resources was common. However, the flexible nature of cloud
computing, which can dynamically respond to surges in demand, makes this
unnecessary. Be sure to take full advantage.
Source
3. Use Cost Optimization Software
These
days, there are many cost management and optimization tools that can help you
save money by highlighting unnecessary expenses such as unused instances or
superfluous instance sizing.
Whether
your business is a VoIP service delivering 3-way phone
calling and videoconferencing or a mobile app
developer, cloud-based digital service providers are especially likely to
miscalculate their instance-type decisions.
Depending
on the cloud platform you're using, you might want to make use of an
in-platform cost optimization module like GCP Billing or AWS Cost Explorer.
Alternatively, you can employ custom cost optimization software such as
CloudAdmin.
4. Identify Idle Resources
The
advantage of using cost optimization tools to monitor resource usage is that it
makes it easy to identify areas where you're needlessly running idle or
unnecessary tasks.
Examples
of idle resource usage that might be racking up on your cloud bill are
on-demand Instances/VMs, Relational Databases, Load Balancers, and Containers.
Once these have been identified, you can schedule them to turn off when not
needed.
It's
best to think of your cloud resources as a subset of your broader business
assets. Their management can be fitted within your scheme for optimizing
general workplace productivity and
aligned with the computing needs of your company's different departments.
5. Take Advantage of Discounts Offered by Providers
While new businesses can shop around for the
best cloud service provider for their needs, there are plenty of ways you can
make savings without switching providers. Understanding the pricing mechanisms
of your cloud platform can help you make more cost-effective business decisions
and make the most of the savings opportunities they provide.
Each
of the big three cloud providers offers purchasing options for reserved
resources at reduced costs compared to their On-Demand prices. AWS Reserved
Instances, Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances, and Google Committed Use
Discounts allow customers to purchase cloud capacity in advance for a lower
price.
Cold
storage services, such as Amazon Glacier or Google Coldline, are another way to
save money by paying less per gigabyte for the long-term storage of data. This
is a useful option for backup and non-critical data that doesn't need to be
accessed every day.
Source
6. Partition Cloud Consumption into Departmental Subscriptions
Cloud
costs can be minimized by organizing services according to business
unit-specific subscriptions. Require uniform naming and tagging standards
across your organization to make the most of the auditing and reporting
capabilities of your cloud infrastructure.
Just
like you would employ protocols to provide quality assurance for call centers,
outsourced or departmentalized workflows that have access to your cloud
resources should be subject to the same standards.
Ensure
teams designate the owner of each instance and the project it relates to. This
will help build accountability and means that if higher than usual bills occur
you can trace it back to the specific instances and follow up with the relevant
teams to identify why.
7. Streamline Cloud Usage When Building Applications
Modern
cloud providers make it cheap and easy to build applications through their
platforms. Whether this means facilitating video calls
online through your company's communication systems or
developing new software products from scratch, there are significant advantages
to utilizing Serverless Computing in development.
In
this model, the responsibility for provisioning, maintaining, and patching
servers is shifted from the customer to cloud providers. This allows developers
to focus on building new features and innovating, paying only for resources
that they need.
What
developers often overlook, however, is that once they start incorporating cloud
functions into their production, costs can quickly spiral out of control. Best
practice is to estimate and optimize cloud usage early in development before
you start running heavy workloads in production.
8. Make Sure You Are Running the Most Efficient Instance Types
One
simple way to reduce cloud costs that's rarely mentioned is to modernize all
your databases and virtual machines so they're running the most up-to-date
instance type from your cloud provisioner.
A
typical omnichannel retail
platform running on Amazon Web Services can easily be operating a dozen or more
instance types, so many companies put off modernizing as it can seem daunting.
But did you know that cloud providers incentivize instance modernization by
pricing the newest generations lower?
Source
Considering
that running the latest instance families will lead to better performance all
around and save you money, it's
almost always worth the effort to upgrade.
Isn't
it time you started implementing these eight top tips?
##
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica Day -
Senior Director, Marketing Strategy, Dialpad
Jessica Day is the Senior Director for
Marketing Strategy at Dialpad, a virtual
faxing platform that takes every kind of conversation to the next
level-turning conversations into opportunities. Jessica is an expert in
collaborating with multifunctional teams to execute and optimize marketing
efforts, for both company and client campaigns. Here is her LinkedIn.