Cloud computing provides significant benefits for businesses, but it must be managed to take full advantage of cost savings. Spending on public cloud services in India are estimated to increase by 29 percent this year. However, analysts expect that through 2024, nearly all legacy applications migrated to the public cloud will require optimisation to become more cost-effective.

As companies migrated to the cloud and expanded services, many have suffered sticker shock. Although companies benefit from faster deployment, easier upgrades, and lower IT support costs, upfront costs and total cost of ownership, features such as internet security, identity management, IT management, maintenance and data migration can add to the bill. Efficient use of cloud services can bring instant and tangible financial benefits to organisations. However, many organisations overspend when they don't have a concrete plan to take advantage of these benefits.

Cloud overspend can be managed through well planned optimisation strategies. However, it is critical to have a cloud cost optimisation strategy in place to prioritise costs and bring all aspects of cloud computing together. Below are five strategies to help organisations in India manage cloud costs.

1. Re-size Based on Current Needs

A key advantage of cloud computing is the ability to scale up or down as business dictates. Organisations can buy what they need and provision for more as the situation changes. This prevents businesses from spending capital upfront to buy capacity they may not need in the future. Do not make the mistake of overbuying capacity when it is so easy to scale.

The main goal is to achieve maximum performance at the lowest possible cost by maintaining optimal compute, storage, and network settings. Failing to right-size or re-size cloud commitments regularly can lead to ballooning costs.

It is a delicate balance to maximise workloads without overspending, so it is important to review the business' needs regularly and re-size as appropriate.

2. Embrace Automation Strategies

Take advantage of cloud automation that will install, configure, and manage your computing services wherever possible. Automating tasks such as backup and storage, security and compliance, code deployment, settings, and configurations can reduce the amount of human intervention required. This both lowers manual errors and allows your IT staff to focus on higher-level strategic business activities.

Dynamic resource allocation can help balance loads to avoid over-utilisation. Automated security sweeps can scan for potential security breaches. Cloud orchestration can configure resources to combine automated workflows into a single process and execute it.

3. Schedule Work and Workloads

If companies do not conduct business overnight or on the weekends, there is clearly no need to schedule employees to staff the office or payroll costs would balloon for no solid business reason.

However, companies may be taking the same approach with cloud computing if the resources are unscheduled. Configure schedules to start and stop depending on workloads and work hours. If no one will be using the resources, there’s no reason to keep it active.

This cloud strategy can also be applied to projects and deployments, as certain resources may only need to be active for specific periods.

4. Review Usage and Apply Analytics

The cloud computing provider’s dashboard and analytics can provide a starting point for optimising costs. Look for obvious signs of under-utilisation. A cloud management platform (CMP) can also provide detailed cost modelling for more granular reporting.

Resources that are in use constantly are good candidates for RIs and Committed Use plans, which can reduce costs when the capacity will be used at some point.

5. Remove Deprecated and Unused Items

It is so easy to store files in computer hard drives that will not be used again. Businesses' cloud data centres also contain a lot of unnecessary data. Since companies are already paying for the capacity, IT teams should make it a regular process to deprecate or replace data as it becomes obsolete.

Also check for orphan instances, volumes, or containers that are no longer in use for current projects. Elastic load balancers (ELBs) can help distribute workloads and traffic, but companies pay for it whether it is used or not. If there are no instances associated with the ELB, delete it. The same goes for un-associated IPs and machine images. Of course, be careful not to delete items that may need to be recovered at a future date.

Businesses must ensure that their cloud strategy includes regular monitoring, automation, scheduling and re-sizing to optimise investments. With ever growing cloud usage, it has become crucial for organisations to optimise costs and manage IT budgets. Well thought out strategies can remarkably decrease cost and act as super savers. Now is the time to inculcate these quintessential strategies and ensure efficiency.

 The recent shift in automation and digitalisation has allowed transformation and empowerment of the workforce. While the advancement of cloud computing has been prevalent before the pandemic, it is more relevant now to adapt technological innovations in the workforce. A strong and cost-effective solution is the right way forward.