Cloud users are growing rapidly and hence managing costs has become a major concern for businesses. As a result, Cloud providers are investing in developing new tools and services to help customers manage costs. With cost management tools, users can optimize spending which includes cost monitoring and budgeting tools, instance sizing recommendations, and reserved instance options.[1]

Figure 1. Cloud Cost Optimization

Cloud Cost Optimization is shown in figure 1. Cloud cost optimization is the net result of successful FinOps—cloud financial management—a set of business practices that link controls over the variable spend model of cloud IaaS to financial accountability.

Successfully optimizing cloud costs requires your enterprise to master two distinct areas:

Intelligent Procurement of Cloud Services:

Taking advantage of savings programs like AWS Savings Plans and capacity reservations like Amazon Reserved Instances addresses low hanging savings opportunities.

Intelligent Optimization of Cloud Capacity:

Intelligently matching your cloud workloads to the optimal instance and resource configuration. [2]

Cloud Cost Optimization Strategies:

Here are some strategies for developing a cloud cost management plan or program. These strategies should be considered on an ongoing basis to achieve maximum and sustainable results.

What to do

• Cloud native design
• Operational refinement
• Capacity reservations and volume discounts

Cloud Cost Management: How to do it

• Managing, organizing, communicating, and educating
• Plan and Prepare to Track Spending per Cost Center
• Billing and Pricing Review
• Software and Automation Needs [3]

cloud cost optimization important:

Poor cloud management can drive up the price of the cloud, eating up budgets and reducing corporate profits. Cloud cost optimization is important because it enables companies to maximize the return on investment of their cloud infrastructure.[4]

Cost optimization and Cloud Financial Management is an ongoing effort. You should regularly work with your finance and technology teams, review your architectural approach, and update your component selection.

AWS strives to help you minimize cost while you build highly resilient, responsive, and adaptive deployments. To truly optimize the cost of your deployment, take advantage of the tools, techniques, and best practices discussed in this paper.[5]

References:

1. https://www.simplilearn.com/trends-in-cloud-computing-article
2. https://www.densify.com/resources/cloud-cost-management-best-practices
3. https://www.capitalone.com/software/blog/cloud-cost-optimization/
4. https://www.globaldots.com/resources/blog/cloud-cost-optimization-the-definitive-guide-to-reduce-cloud-spend/
5. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/cost-optimization-pillar/conclusion.html

Cite this article:

Gokula Nandhini K (2023), Cloud Cost Optimization, Anatechmaz, pp.64