redLine: Cloud computing cost optimisation

Cloud computing adoption rates have spiraled over the past 5 years, but due to the complex and dynamic nature of cloud services, so too have the costs. Often unpredictable expenses and variable costs make budgeting difficult, and cost management incredibly hard.

The pay-as-you-go pricing model, whilst cost-effective at first and easy to adopt (deliberately), as environments scale up, costs can escalate rapidly. Opaque pricing and limited visibility over resource utilization add to the problem.

However, innovation at Portera has transformed this picture for our clients, and our cloud monitoring tool is delivering 4% compound annual savings on like-for-like usage.

Managing multiple cloud providers or services can result in unexpected data transfer fees, vendor lock-in, and difficulty in optimizing costs across different platforms. Moreover, underestimating storage needs or failing to optimize resource allocation can lead to unnecessary expenses. Conversely, over-specified and under-utilized resources represent inefficient spend.

It is critical to our clients in an inflationary cycle that they can implement effective cost management strategies, continuous monitoring, and leveraging tools to optimize usage.

We have developed an application that involved creating multiple reports for different Cloud environments. These include Cloud Platform, Data Platform, Virtual Data Center, Office365, and others.

Daily, weekly, or monthly usage reports are created, comparing specifications to actual, resulting in proactive and reactive (surge-related) notifications to relevant Service Delivery Manager(s). Informing stakeholders of the delta between specification and usage, as well as notifying them of unexpected loads, ensures that stakeholders can monitor, manage, and optimise their cloud resources.