What are the key metrics to track for cloud cost optimization in fintech?

1 Cloud usage

One of the first steps to optimize your cloud costs is to understand how much and how often you use your cloud services. Cloud usage metrics can show you the patterns and trends of your cloud consumption, such as peak hours, seasonal fluctuations, and idle resources. By analyzing your cloud usage, you can identify opportunities to reduce unnecessary or overprovisioned resources, such as instances, storage, or network bandwidth. You can also leverage features such as auto-scaling, on-demand pricing, or spot instances to adjust your cloud capacity according to your demand.

2 Cloud performance

Another essential metric to track for cloud cost optimization is cloud performance, which measures how well your cloud services meet your expectations and requirements. Cloud performance metrics can include availability, latency, throughput, reliability, and scalability. By monitoring your cloud performance, you can ensure that you are getting the best value for your money and that your cloud services are delivering optimal results for your customers and stakeholders. You can also use cloud performance metrics to compare different cloud providers or regions and choose the most cost-effective and suitable option for your fintech needs.

3 Cloud efficiency

Cloud efficiency is a metric that reflects how well you utilize your cloud resources and optimize your cloud operations. Cloud efficiency metrics can include resource utilization, cost per unit, operational overhead, and automation level. By measuring your cloud efficiency, you can identify areas where you can improve your cloud processes and workflows, such as resource allocation, configuration management, security, backup, and recovery. You can also use cloud efficiency metrics to implement best practices and tools that can automate, simplify, and streamline your cloud management and reduce human errors and costs.

4 Cloud governance

Cloud governance is a metric that indicates how well you control and monitor your cloud environment and align it with your business objectives and policies. Cloud governance metrics can include compliance, security, auditability, and accountability. By tracking your cloud governance, you can ensure that you are following the rules and regulations that apply to your fintech domain, such as data privacy, financial reporting, or anti-money laundering. You can also use cloud governance metrics to enforce roles and responsibilities, set budgets and limits, and track changes and actions in your cloud environment.

5 Cloud optimization

Cloud optimization is a metric that summarizes how well you achieve your cloud cost optimization goals and outcomes. Cloud optimization metrics can include cost savings, return on investment, customer satisfaction, and business agility. By evaluating your cloud optimization, you can measure the impact and value of your cloud cost optimization efforts and strategies, such as right-sizing, spot instances, reserved instances, or serverless computing. You can also use cloud optimization metrics to communicate your achievements and challenges to your stakeholders and adjust your plans and priorities accordingly.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?