In times like these, assessing and managing spend of every part of your business is pretty important. It can be easy to overlook some areas, especially if they're left to tootle along by themselves.
A recurring culprit of accidental-overspend is cloud services. But the good news is, if you understand and get to grips with your spend, those costs can go way down.
Why You Should Be Asking “Do We Pay Too Much For Cloud?”
Cloud spend can vary enormously, from pretty reasonable to eye-wateringly expensive. To ensure that what you are paying matches up to the service you are receiving, you first need to ask:
"Do I feel comfortable paying this much?"
And secondly you need to ask:
"Are we effectively using the cloud set up we have?"
If the answer to both of these is 'no', it's worth investigating why.
Getting The Biggest Bang For Your Buck
Cloud cost is largely dependant on the tools you have chosen for your set up. However, there is a way to get around this - similar but differing tools can be used for similar jobs, but can slash your cost. It's all about analysing what tools your using, why and how you're using them, and if there's a way to get the services you're looking for through different means.
Do You Really Need *That* Tool?
It's worth noting that building in redundancy and certain levels of security can really bump up costs.
The question to ask with this is:
"Is this service proportional to what is actually needed?"
Do your levels of resiliency match your obligations, or are you spending money on something that you don't really need?
Different Requirements For Different Reasons
To properly assess your cloud-spend, you need to investigate whether your set up is appropriate to your business. There is no cut-and-paste approach: it'll vary from business-to-business.
However, it is *absolutely* worth looking into: the results can be quite surprising. And there's no time quite like the present to reduce those bills.
If you want to know how we can help you manage your cloud spend, please reach out. Send us an email, tweet us or say hello on LinkedIn.
For more articles on cloud spend, check out our blogs on How To Keep On Top Of Azure Cloud Spend And How To Assess Cloud Spend In Our Current Climate.