Any cloud FinOps practitioner, knows that managing and optimizing cloud costs is crucial for businesses that use cloud services. Companies that don’t keep an eye on their cloud costs can face unexpected bills, overspend on cloud resources, and miss out on cost-saving opportunities. However, when it comes to cloud cost management and optimization, there are two approaches: one-time efforts and ongoing efforts. In this blog post, I’ll compare these two approaches and explain their benefits and drawbacks.
One-Time Cloud Cost Management and Optimization: The Pros and Cons
One-time cloud cost management and optimization involves analyzing your cloud infrastructure and usage, identifying areas for cost savings, and implementing changes. This approach is typically done when a business first moves to the cloud or when there is a major change in the cloud infrastructure.
The main advantage of one-time cloud cost management and optimization is that it can quickly identify areas for cost savings and provide an immediate cost reduction. For example, it can help you identify idle resources that you’re paying for but not using, or it can help you optimize your storage usage.
However, there are several drawbacks to this approach. First, one-time cost optimization efforts may not be sustainable in the long term. The cloud environment is dynamic, and your cloud usage and requirements can change over time. As a result, the cost-saving opportunities identified during a one-time effort may no longer be relevant or may have new, undiscovered cost-saving opportunities.
Second, one-time cost optimization efforts can be time-consuming and require specialized expertise. Unless you have an expert in-house, you may need to hire a consultant, which can be expensive.
Ongoing Cloud Cost Management and Optimization: The Pros and Cons
Ongoing cloud cost management and optimization involves continuously monitoring your cloud usage and costs, identifying areas for cost savings, and making adjustments as needed. This approach is designed to be a sustainable, long-term effort.
The main advantage of ongoing cloud cost management and optimization is that it’s a continuous effort, which means that you’re constantly identifying new opportunities for cost savings and optimizing your cloud infrastructure accordingly. For example, you can use automation to manage your resources, optimize your application architecture to reduce resource usage, or leverage new pricing models introduced by your cloud service provider.
Another advantage of ongoing cloud cost management and optimization is that it can be done in-house. By training your IT and finance teams on cloud cost management best practices and tools, you can build internal expertise and reduce your reliance on consultants.
By leveraging SaaS cloud cost management and optimization tools, the internal team can enhance their capabilities and streamline their efforts, making it easier to continuously monitor and optimize cloud usage and costs. These tools can provide detailed insights and reports on cloud usage, cost, and performance, enabling the team to identify areas for optimization and take action in a timely and efficient manner. Additionally, these tools can automate many of the manual processes associated with cloud cost management, reducing the workload on the team and freeing up their time to focus on more strategic initiatives.
The main drawback of ongoing cloud cost management and optimization is that it requires a long-term commitment and sustained effort. It’s not a one-time effort, and you need to dedicate resources and time to monitor and optimize your cloud infrastructure continuously.
Benefits of Ongoing Cloud Cost Management and Optimization
Ongoing cloud cost management and optimization has several benefits, both in the short and long terms.
In the short term, ongoing optimization efforts can:
- Reduce cloud costs
- Improve efficiency
- Increase visibility and control
In the long term, ongoing optimization efforts can:
- Help your business adapt to changing cloud usage and requirements
- Promote a culture of cost optimization and efficiency within your organization
- Enable your business to maximize the value of your cloud infrastructure
Conclusion
In conclusion, while one-time cloud cost management and optimization efforts can provide an immediate reduction in cloud costs, they are not sustainable in the long term. Ongoing cloud cost management and optimization efforts, on the other hand, require a long-term commitment, but can provide continuous cost savings and efficiency improvements, and enable businesses to adapt to changing cloud usage and requirements. I recommend that businesses adopt an ongoing cloud cost management and optimization approach, to ensure they are continuously
