Today, most businesses have some or all of their data stored on the cloud. Now that so many companies have adopted this strategy, many want to know: how can a company find optimal and efficient ways to manage cloud costs and cloud services?
Getting the most out of cloud cost management, cloud tools, and best practices often means outsourcing cloud costs and IT teams for most companies. Outsourcing these expenditures can help any firm manage its bottom line.
Table of Contents
- What Is Cloud Cost Management?
- Is Cloud Cost Important for Businesses?
- Outsourcing Cloud Cost Management
- What if a Company Has Multiple Clouds?
- Public Cloud Providers
- Is Cloud Spending Increasing?
What Is Cloud Cost Management?
Cloud cost management helps businesses understand and manage costs based on their individual cloud technology needs. Many contributing factors can affect cloud costs, including memory usage, storage, network traffic, usage of web services, and things like IT personnel and software licenses.
Therefore, a cloud cost management strategy will typically take these factors into account.
Read more: How to Tailor Security Frameworks to a Cloud-Based Infrastructure
Is Cloud Cost Important for Businesses?
Anything that can help a company control its spending while maximizing its resources is a benefit in both the short and long term. With cloud cost management, users can reduce unneeded spending while helping to plan for the future.
Keeping track of cloud costs can become complicated, and it’s easy for costs to become exorbitant — especially if the company pays based on its usage. So even if your company has strong IT, outsourcing cloud management could be the best solution for cloud cost management.
Outsourcing Cloud Cost Management
Outsourcing cloud costs can have many benefits for most businesses. When relying on an outsourced data facility with IT staff, almost any company will reduce its cloud cost expenses. That said, there are other reasons why an organization would want to rely on someone else for its cloud cost management best practices.
When a company outsources cloud costs, they can expect a few things:
Better Performance and IT Expertise
Experienced managed service providers work with companies to implement a customized cloud solution that fits business goals while ensuring updated compliance and security. If a company is small — or has a small IT staff — they may not know how to deliver and maintain cloud cost management best practices.
An outsourced cloud service provider offers expertise and reduced costs while planning, implementing, performing data migration, and regular maintenance.
Read more: SAP ERP Software: S/4HANA Cloud Review for 2021
Reduced Costs
An outsourced cloud system can help reduce in-house IT costs, allowing a business to focus more on IT strategy.
But a company can save on more than just IT costs. For example, the average lifespan of the computing equipment needed tends to be three to five years. That means a company will have to replace or upgrade costly equipment quite often.
In addition, the company will need to have experienced IT personnel, server admins, and engineers, all while paying for an on-site data center. As a result, a company can accrue unnecessary costs for data storage. Said data can be quickly moved to a cloud and, in turn, experience decreased upfront and future management costs.
Companies can drastically reduce their cloud cost management by relying on an outsourced staff and data facility.
Increased Security
A company needs to maintain cloud security while having the proper access to controls, real-time monitoring, and vulnerability management. If a company doesn’t specialize in IT, it’s more likely they will make mistakes that could lead to vulnerabilities.
With an outsourced cloud provider, a company doesn’t have to worry as much about personally dealing with hackers or other security breaches. In addition, any reputable cloud provider will have the ability to pass compliance audits, which can be costly for a company of any size to manage on its own.
If any general problems arise, the cloud company can usually handle them without a business dipping into its own resources.
What if a Company Has Multiple Clouds?
If your company uses multiple clouds, a multi-cloud management system is a set of tools that will help secure and monitor applications from across several public clouds.
According to Flexera, “92% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy; 82% have a hybrid cloud strategy, using both public and private clouds.”
More and more companies are seeing the benefit of a multi-cloud strategy, as they can pick and choose their services, tailoring them to fit their needs. A multi-cloud system also allows entities to choose where they will host these solutions.
Public Cloud Providers
Public cloud providers give a business the option to decide what resources fit their needs, and it’s no wonder public cloud adoption continues to accelerate.
For example, public clouds offer a company communication services. Providers like Google, AWS, and Azure provide the services needed to address peak demand, as well as perform IT and other business operations.
In general, an organization should choose a provider close to their office to improve network performance.
Is Cloud Spending Increasing?
In short, yes. According to Gartner, “Worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 23.1% in 2021 to total $332.3 billion, up from $270 billion in 2020.” In 2021, companies are seeing higher-than-expected cloud usage due to COVID-19, while most struggle to control their growing cloud spending.
The pandemic has accelerated spending as more businesses put more extensive workloads on the cloud. As the need for more virtual space increases, you can expect cloud management to keep growing in both size and importance.
Many factors contribute to cloud costs, and those factors are constantly shifting. However, managing cloud costs can be as simple as outsourcing an enterprise’s cloud cost management. By outsourcing, a business benefits from only paying for what they use, an expert IT staff, better performance, and increased security.
Read next: Cloud Spending to Power through 2021
