Cloud Cost management and optimization in short.
In this cloud era, both public and private cloud adoption grew in 2018 and AWS is leader in all cloud providers. When we talk about cloud we are very much familiar with services provided by the cloud provider and know how to use them but question comes here
“Are we using them efficiently?”
“Are we really saving money by using cloud or wrong way of using cloud services ending up with more cost?”
Cloud management and Optimization are major factors where most of people are not confident. By using cloud services efficiently, you can save more money, resources and you can sleep better at night.
Now if we talk what are the best practices one can adopt to manage and optimize your cloud?
Here are some points which we should consider while using cloud:
- Before using any service first check the different types and options available in AWS for your need and use AWS monthly calculator to get approx. cost for your usage so that you will not be surprised at the end.
2. Break up your infrastructure into useful environments, services, cost centers, applications, etc. To do this, the best way AWS provides is using tags. Tags allow users to associate different dimensions to AWS resource’s cost or usage data, giving users more context to relate AWS resource costs and usage back to the business.
Here’s an example of EC2 instances tagged by environments that they are associated with, like production and staging. This single dimension starts to add color to each EC2 instance, telling folks who might be responsible for its usage, cost, and upkeep.
Here’s an example of EC2 costs differentiated by environment tags. With a solid cloud cost management tool, like Cloudability, in place, users can click on a particular tag to dive deeper into investigating those costs.
The thumb rule here is to try and tag as many AWS resources as you can, whether through a stringent policy or via programmatic means, as we’ll cover below. It’s a fundamental way of understanding how AWS resource costs and usage related to the business and can lead to generating meaningful reports that can start the right conversations about optimizing AWS.
3. We have many other tools available with which we can dig dipper to know usage and cost for AWS services used. One can find more detail here https://aws.amazon.com/products/management-tools/partner-solutions/
4. Next option is “AWS Cost and Usage report”. This report tracks your AWS usage and provides estimated charges associated with your AWS account. The report contains line items for each unique combination of AWS product, usage type, and operation that your AWS account uses.
5. AWS cloud watch Metrics are also useful to analyze usage of your resources more granular way. By keeping track of your resource usage you can plan if you can increase/decrease your cloud infra.
Summary: Using cloud in a better way is a must to save money and resources. To do so AWS and AWS partners have provided many options, just we should be aware of them and use them. Using best practices and third-party tools to analyze your cloud usage and cost can save you huge money.