Is your enterprise reaping the full business value from its cloud migration strategy? Getting the most from the cloud isn’t simply about trying to shave your monthly cloud bill, but also creating a platform for successful digital transformation and ongoing innovation. Knowledgeable infrastructure architects and enterprise architects are continuously exploring ways to be smarter about cloud deployments and simplify their environments.
Yet given how complex and fast-moving the cloud environment is, it is easy to overlook some of the most powerful optimisation strategies. Here is our guide to some of the common cloud optimisation mistakes companies are making as they accelerate their move to the cloud:
- Not getting an accurate baseline of costs across your multi-cloud estate
Many enterprises do not have a clear view of the costs right across their hybrid and multi-cloud estate. To create a foundation for continuous optimisation, you need to understand who is spending money on cloud services. FinOps disciplines can help you gain more transparency into cost-based performance indicators. Technology expense management is a core component of FinOps. A cutting-edge, cloud-based technology expense management solution can help your business understand cloud spending in detail.
- Failing to understand how resources are billed for
The way that cloud providers bill for the resources you use is complex and there are nuances in their billing models that are easy to miss. Consider the difference between Azure’s Stopped State and Deallocated State as an example. When you ‘stop’ an Azure Instance, all processes will end, but the hardware will remain allocated. You will still be charged by the hour for this instance. But when you deallocate an Azure instance, you will stop paying for the VM’s compute costs.
- Not considering the governance and security impact
Cloud security and networking are at the centre of a well-optimised and robust cloud environment. Companies need to constantly evaluate which data they retain, for how many years and on which platforms to comply with legal data protection and retention requirements. It’s good practice to develop clear policies about when certain data can be deleted or archived to avoid the costs of storing unneeded and unused data over the years.
- Missing out on re-platforming and rearchitecting opportunities
Enterprise architects talk about the 5 Rs of digital transformation—replace, rehost, replatform, rearchitect and retire. In this discussion, the rearchitecting and replatforming options are often overlooked. Decoupling a solution and shifting it from infrastructure as a service (IaaS) to platform-as-a-service, for example, could offer lower hosting and operational costs for some applications.
- Allowing duplicate SaaS services to proliferate
Many enterprises have allowed shadow IT to flourish or have even encouraged lines of business to procure software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions independently of the IT department. The result is a sprawl of SaaS applications and data across the business. Consolidating and centralising SaaS service—such as email or marketing apps—could simplify your IT environment and clear the way to take advantage of bulk discounts.
Most enterprises hope to achieve cost-savings by migrating to the cloud. But to maximise the cost efficiencies and business benefits while reducing risks, they need to continually find ways to reduce wasteful spending and simplify the management of their estate. 1Nebula's FinOps and cloud capabilities can guide you along a successful digital transformation journey.