Tools for Cloud Cost Management
The key is efficient cloud usage and active cost management
The optimisation of cloud cost became a critical success factor from commercial perspective due to the increasing cloud usage with different providers and diverse billing concepts. In the course of time the discipline Cloud Cost Management evolved, which includes the administration, monitoring and optimisation of cloud costs. Cloud Cost Management is part of Cloud Financial Management or so called FinOps (Finance & DevOps), which also involves technical aspects in addition to the financial perspective of cloud management.
The main objectives of cloud cost management is to maximize the efficiency of cloud usage and to reduce cloud cost through effective cost management. Moreover effective cost planning and prognoses should be facilitated. To achieve these goals it is crucial to have transparency over cloud usage and architecture to understand the associated costs and improve performance by right-sizing while keeping the cost in check.
The market for cloud management tools is growing rapidly
Tools can help to manage the technical as well as the commercial aspects of the cloud. According to a Gartner study about cloud management tooling the market covers approx. 1.5 billion USD with an expected annual growth rate of about 20%.
However, the market is mostly unregulated and is comprised of a wide variety of offerings from big cloud vendors (e.g. Amazon, Google, Microsoft or Oracle) as well as a multitude of 3rd party vendors. These offerings range from specialised tools for particular focus areas, such as cloud cost planning or billing and reporting, to overarching tools with multifaceted features for all aspects of cloud management. In addition, the market is developing constantly and continuously offers new tools or new features for existing tools. On top of that trusted SAM tools expand their offering to also cover functionalities to properly manage the cloud in addition to the on-premise environment. Therefore we recommend to always consult the latest information when considering buying cloud management tool, since regularly new studies with differing scope are published, which evaluate these tools.
The decision for a Cloud Cost Management Tool should be carefully considered
The choice of the right cloud management tool is in the end dependent on the setup in the respective organization. A variety of aspects should be contemplated in order to choose the right tool for the requirements of your organization.
Considering the offerings differ significantly, the key is to evaluate your own requirements an priorities in order to allow a meaningful evaluation of options. Crucial is also the starting point such as size or scope of the organisation, the existing cloud infrastructure (single vs. multi-cloud strategy) and which tools are already being used. Because a lot of cloud vendors already offer native analysis tools, you should review carefully if these functionalities are already sufficient for your purposed or if additional features are required. The compatibility of cloud management tools with the cloud vendors has to be considered just as much as the already existing SAM tools or a combination of different tools.
For your evaluation the required range of features is equally important as the tool costs as well as the effort and cost associated with the implementation of a new cloud management tool. In the end the goal is to achieve the best possible cost-performance ratio to help to continuously save more cloud costs than is being invested for cloud cost management.
Author: Jessica Loi Müller