Highlights
- Businesses are switching to the cloud at an ever-increasing rate as part of the digital transformation effort.
- The major reason why firms choose to employ a Multi-Cloud Strategy is the ability to become more agile and save resources throughout their entire organization.
- Cloud is the backbone of any modern business, and effective cloud management is the way to sustain it.
In this article
Are you Wasting your Cloud Spending?
One of the crooked little secrets of the cloud computing market is its potential for enormous waste. Here's what you should know!
Due to the pandemic-enabled rush to shift to the cloud, many organizations have grown bloated with excess, unused, or orphaned Infrastructure. Fortunately, the same cloud's on-demand agility that creates waste also offers a way to automate platform rightsizing and sizing.
Businesses are switching to the cloud at an ever-increasing rate as part of the digital transformation effort. Gartner reveals that the global share of public cloud services will increase by 20% in 2022, reaching $494.7 billion, building on year-over-year growth.
"Cloud is the powerhouse that drives current digital firms," said Sid Nag, research VP at Gartner. "CIOs got over the irrational exuberance of implementing cloud services & are skeptical in their selection of public cloud providers to elevate business & technology outcomes in their digital transformation."
However, waste also rises as cloud spending soars. A recent investigation revealed that Infrastructure not being used to its full potential wastes 32% of cloud expenses.
The silver lining is that you are not the only one concerned about skyrocketing cloud charges! 51% of the 3,200 IT decision-makers who participated in the 2021 HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey listed cost issues as the primary cloud challenge.
Cloud Waste is Expanding
Why is it important to prioritize cloud cost management
The major reason why firms choose to employ a Multi-Cloud Strategy is the ability to become more agile and save resources throughout their entire organization.
However, for many businesses, uncontrolled cloud utilization, ambiguous business objectives, and poorly managed resources can cause the cloud cost to exceed anticipated levels.
According to research, organizations spend nearly US$206.2 billion on public cloud services, of which US$39.5 billion goes toward Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). According to the same study, firms lose over $14.1 billion on cloud computing due to unused and excess resources.
But where is this enormous cloud spending going to waste?
- Overprovisioned Resources: Overprovisioned resources are one of the most prominent reasons cloud spending is wasted. Developers frequently request more resources than they require.
- Unused Assets: Cloud resources that companies pay for by the hour or minute but don't use as efficiently as they could are called idle resources, which usually means they are not being utilized.
- Lack of Automation: Since they don't recognize that their cloud spending changes as resources are constantly added and removed, many firms who go to the cloud later fail to take the essential steps to maximize their cloud investments.
- Unclear Picture of Total Spend: Cloud subscription fees may appear affordable initially. However, if firms do not clearly understand what resources they are utilizing and how much they are paying, expenses can quickly mount over time.
According to Statista respondents, 30% of cloud spending was wasted in 2020. This discovery has led many firms to prioritize Cloud Cost Management.
IT leaders who portray the cloud as an enabler rather than a final state will be most successful in their digital conversion journeys.
Cloud Cost Management is the Need of the Hour
Comprehend and control the expenses related to public cloud services
Optimizing the current Multi-Cloud Strategy for cost savings is the top priority for 73% of cloud decision-makers, according to Flexera's 2020 State of the Cloud Report. And luckily, cloud cost management comes to help!
Cloud Cost Management includes expense tracking, reporting, visibility, allocation, budgeting, and forecasting under one general heading. The goal here is to comprehend and control the expenses related to public cloud services.
It entails being aware of the sources of costs, the teams to whom they may be assigned, and the amount they can expect to pay in the future. Here are the best practices.
Achieve a Unified View - Cloud teams must rely on visualization and reporting tools for complete, end-to-end visibility over the entire multi-cloud Infrastructure and associated billing charges from a single platform.
Track Unit Costs - Firms must be aware of and keep track of their unit expenses over time to determine whether a cost increase is proportionately linked to revenue growth.
Analyze Kubernetes - Understanding the business value and monitoring the effectiveness of Kubernetes investments may be done effectively using unit economics.
Optimize Infrastructure - With real-time recommendations customized to the environment and easy to deploy, advanced cloud cost optimization tools assist businesses in continuously optimizing cloud spending.
What does the future hold?
Cloud is the backbone of any modern business, and effective cloud management is the way to sustain it
Many firms use a Multi-Cloud Strategy to increase their agility and scalability as they prepare for a future with constantly changing consumer needs. "IT leaders who portray the cloud as an enabler rather than a final state will be most successful in their digital conversion journeys," said Sid Nag from Gartner.
The firms combining cloud with one more adjacent - emerging tech will fare even better." A McKinsey survey shows roughly 80% of organizations consider controlling cloud spending difficult.
But with intelligent cloud solutions and best practices regarding Cloud Cost Management, it doesn't have to be. Cloud is the backbone of any modern business, and effective cloud management is the way to sustain it.
