Cloud waste is the unnecessary spending of resources and money on cloud services. These services are often not fully utilised or optimised. About 32% of cloud spending is wasted, which can lead to budget concerns as spending skyrockets. However, that figure also holds opportunity. It means that you can reduce nearly a third of cloud spending by optimising how you use cloud tools.
Here are some smart tactics to reduce cloud waste and save money:
- Conduct a Comprehensive Cloud Audit – Conduct an audit before implementing any cost-cutting strategies.
- Put in Place Right-Sizing Strategies – Analyse your existing data using tools such as Panzura’s Symphony and then resize data silos accordingly.
- Use Reserved Instances and Savings Plans – Cloud providers offer cost-saving options like Reserved Instances (RIs) and Savings Plans. Seek out cloud providers which can provide cheaper pricing.
- Install Automated Scaling Policies – Dynamic workloads have a need for dynamic resource allocation. Install automated scaling policies where available.
- Track and Optimise Storage – Regularly review, delete, or archive unnecessary data to free up storage space.
- Schedule Your Cloud Resources – Schedule your cloud resources to run only when you need them.
- Delete Unused or Orphaned Cloud Resources – Regularly audit your cloud environment to delete any unused or orphaned resources your business is not using.
- Weed Out Duplicate Services – Centralise cloud resources and remove duplicate tools.
- Embrace Serverless Architecture – Serverless computing allows businesses to run applications without managing the underlying infrastructure.
Author
Richard Huggins
Richard joined us in 1997 as an apprentice IT engineer conducting on-site installations of CAD workstations and Microsoft and Novell network environments. After a brief spell away to travel the world, he returned to work on our helpdesk supporting our CAD customers. In 2007, Richard was promoted to Support Services Manager and worked in this role until 2016 when he decided to acquire new skills and widen his IT industry knowledge and left to work as an Operational Manager for one of the UK’s Top 20 leading Information Security companies. In 2019 Richard once again returned to Symetri as Head of Support and Customer Success to further improve the Symetri customer support experience and is now responsible for the IT Solutions division.
