Cloud computing can make your business run smoothly, free from costly data centers and servers; but it also adds additional IT costs. Keeping track of your monthly cloud computing bills isn’t easy. The typical bill is complex and made up of dozens of different factors, such as CPU core, storage units, RAM size and data transfers.
To keep your cloud spending whether in Azure or Amazon cloud, under control, you need a cost optimization plan. There are many ways an organization can optimize cloud, in terms of performance and cost. You need to strike a balance between them; shed any unnecessary applications; know where your users are; and negotiate rather than accept published cloud prices.
In addition to these steps there are many online resources and services that can help trim costs by using a series of clever choices.
- Set your priorities – Different businesses have equally varying needs. The cost factor for your cloud approach varies depending on your business function. Set your priorities first and then look for solutions on the cloud.
- Stop running instances when not in use – You don’t run your applications all the time. Depending on the workload, you can stop and restart them, thus saving on your cloud costs. Stop adding more instances, get rid or remove unused instances.
- Get automated – Many of the services can be automated, which drives down your cloud costs considerably.
- Use management tools – Avail different tools which will help with managing your cloud costs. They help in identifying inefficiencies in your application deployments.
- Plan ahead for cloud migration – Migrating applications to the cloud is a costly process involving redesign of your apps. Make prior plans on which of your applications you want to move to the cloud beforehand, and make them compatible for this cloud migration.
- Compare cloud prices – Different cloud providers offer competitive prices. Select the one which gives you the best prices for the services which you require. Premium services or cloud features such as high availability or security are expensive. Run a pilot test for the application to determine the cloud features you need or don’t need, and you expect to account for the majority of your cloud usage and costs. If the premium feature’s cost outweighs its value, you may not want to use it.
- Consider your user’s locations – Opt for the cloud if your user base is wide and spans different time zones. The user access to the cloud services should make it worthwhile for the incurred cloud costs.
- Cloud negotiations matter – Running a test pilot on the cloud will provide a baseline for cloud usage and resources. It will help in negotiating on the terms and conditions of the Service Level Agreements before deciding on a particular cloud provider.
- Decrease Data use in the cloud – As more data goes into the cloud, it’s more expensive to retrieve it back. Analyze the data and work only on the data set which is most valuable to you. Keep the rest of it in storage. Improve the quality of databases and information before moving it to the cloud.
- Find a cost effective support plan – You don’t want to get stuck in the middle of a deployment or implementation, due to lack of support from the cloud provider. Opt for a support plan which is in tune with your business needs and hand-holding needs.
Manage your cloud costs effectively with these ways. Drop a mail to info@sysfore.com or call us at +91-80-4110-5555 and out cloud experts will get back to you.