{"id":2924,"date":"2019-05-13T16:05:41","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T21:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stratospherenetworks.com\/blog\/?p=2924"},"modified":"2019-05-13T16:05:41","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T21:05:41","slug":"4-tips-for-better-cloud-cost-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stratospherenetworks.com\/blog\/4-tips-for-better-cloud-cost-management\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Tips for Better Cloud Cost Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"average<\/a>Essentially everyone is in the cloud these days: 94 percent of 786 tech professionals across various organizations report using the cloud<\/a>, according to the RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud<\/a> report. They aren\u2019t just leveraging one type of cloud solution either. Many businesses now employ a multi-cloud and hybrid<\/a> approach, using multiple clouds and\/or different kinds of clouds (public and private) to suit different workloads and avoid getting locked in with one vendor, among other reasons.<\/p>\n

With most enterprises (84 percent, according to RightScale) now using a multi-cloud strategy, a new problem has become commonplace: managing cloud costs across various vendors and solutions. Half of enterprises spend more than $1.2 million each year on cloud solutions, and the no. 1 reported cloud priority for 2019 is cost optimization, the State of the Cloud report states.<\/p>\n

Many have adopted cloud solutions<\/a> partly for cost containment purposes, since they don\u2019t require hardware like on-premise options. However, spending can easily climb as an organization adopts multiple clouds. A proactive and deliberate approach to cost management is crucial to optimize spending.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for ways to better manage your cloud expenditures, the following recommendations can help keep costs under control.<\/p>\n

1. Monitor spending regularly. <\/strong>Make a habit of monitoring your daily cloud costs, according to the InformationWeek article \u201c10 Tips for Managing Cloud Costs<\/a>.\u201d In larger companies, IT staff members typically spin up new instances all the time, so not paying attention to spending for weeks or even months will often leave you feeling caught off guard by spending levels.<\/p>\n

2. Look into cloud cost management tools. <\/strong>Of course, you probably have enough to do without having to make the time to check on daily cloud costs. Luckily, you can streamline the process with monitoring tools. Many cloud vendors offer their own cost monitoring solutions. For example, Microsoft Azure recently announced<\/a> the general availability of Azure Cost Management features for Azure Government and Pay-As-You-Go customers.<\/p>\n

3. Identify areas of waste. <\/strong>On average, 35 percent of cloud spending is wasted each year, resulting in more than $10 billion down the drain in expenditures across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure and Google (the top public cloud vendors), according to the white paper \u201cEssential Strategies for Managing Cloud Costs<\/a>\u201d from Flexera, the parent company of RightScale. Wasted spending usually results from the following four issues, according to the paper.<\/p>\n