Over the last decade, the cloud has moved from a competitive advantage to a necessity. Its agility, flexibility, and scalability are essential to keep up with today’s dynamic markets and increasingly remote and hybrid workforces.

But as cloud adoption rates have soared, so has the complexity. There’s a public cloud and SaaS app to fill your every need, and according to Oracle, 98% of organizations today use or plan to use multiple public clouds (i.e., a multi-cloud architecture hybrid system architecture).

But complexity has a price. A recent study found that 82% of organizations rank managing cloud optimization as their top business challenge.

Cloud optimization best practices and tools

Tackling cloud overspending requires a careful mix of tools and best practices. In our experience, the top four are:

1. Utilization tracking

Cloud utilization tracking involves monitoring and analyzing the usage of resources like computing, storage, and networks. It provides visibility into how efficiently cloud environments are leveraging these resources. Key metrics tracked include CPU, memory, storage, network usage, and the number of virtual machine instances, usually tracked over time to identify trends and patterns.

Tracking utilization over time helps make sure workloads are correctly sized, identifies opportunities to optimize costs, and highlights where additional resources may be required. Cloud platforms provide native tools like AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, and GCP Stackdriver for tracking utilization. Analyzing utilization data helps avoid over-provisioning to lower costs and ensures there is enough capacity to meet workload demands. Efficient utilization tracking is essential for effectively managing environments.

2. Rightsizing resources

Rightsizing involves provisioning an optimal amount of resources to run applications and workloads cost-effectively. It requires analyzing utilization data to determine the right mix of cloud services and the appropriate size of resources to support workloads and eliminate any overprovisioning.

Rightsizing also ensures resources are not under-provisioned, which can lead to performance issues. Usage patterns should be studied to rightsize resources and scale them based on demand. Tools like Azure Cost Management and AWS Cost Explorer can help model and assess size options.

As application usage changes, capacities must be re-evaluated and resized periodically for continued optimization. Rightsizing takes continuous effort but helps avoid wasting resources and reduces cloud costs significantly.

Technology & Approach

Effective strategic planning is imperative for aligning business expenditures with its goals and ensuring investment efficiency. It enables cross-functional collaboration so technology best practices are implemented organization-wide. Planning can also help you identify skill gaps, training needs, and structural changes needed to optimize cloud usage.

Strategic planning for cloud computing optimization is essential for several other reasons, too:

• Resource efficiency: Cloud cost optimization helps identify underused or unused resources that you can downscale or eliminate to save costs.
• Budget forecasting: With optimized spending, businesses can gain a clearer understanding of their expenditures, which is crucial for precise budget forecasting and allocation.
• Competitive advantage: Cost savings from cloud optimization solutions can be reinvested in other areas, providing a competitive advantage. Lower operational costs might result in lower customer prices or more funds available for innovation.
• Improved customer experience: Efficient resource allocation can lead to better performance, improving user experience and, potentially, the bottom line.

Even with the right strategies, many organizations hesitate to experiment 
with new services due to cost risks.

Rightsizing also ensures resources are not under-provisioned, which can lead to performance issues. Usage patterns should be studied to rightsize resources and scale them based on demand. Tools like Azure Cost Management and AWS Cost Explorer can help model and assess size options.

As application usage changes, capacities must be re-evaluated and resized periodically for continued optimization. Rightsizing takes continuous effort but helps avoid wasting resources and reduces cloud costs significantly.