How can you eliminate cloud waste?

I work extensively on AWS and found that AWS Trusted Advisor is an excellent tool for identify unused and underutilized resources. AWS Trusted Advisor can identity underutilized EC2 instances, idle RDS instances, idle Load Balancers, underutilized EBS volumes, Lambda functions with over provisioned memory, etc. Compute Optimizer is also an additional great tool to identify under-provisioned EC2 instances, Lambda functions, EBS volumes, etc. Besides these tools, organizations also need to continuously monitor their cloud usage and performance regularly. Having a good tagging strategy will also provide right insights into your resource consumption.

To identify unused or underutilized resources in a cloud environment: 1)Continuous Monitoring: Regularly monitor key metrics like CPU, memory, network, and storage. 2)Cloud Provider Tools: Use native monitoring tools (e.g., AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor) for insights into resource utilization. 3)Cost Management Tools: Employ cost management tools (e.g., AWS Cost Explorer) to identify overspending and unused resources. 4)Capacity Planning: Focus on efficient capacity planning to align resources with demand. 5)Alerts and Notifications: Set up alerts for abnormal resource usage and receive notifications for prompt action.

Combat cloud waste by identifying and addressing unused or underutilized resources, like virtual machines, storage volumes, load balancers, or databases. Regularly monitor cloud usage and performance using tools for visibility and insights. Implement tagging to categorize resources by purpose, owner, or environment, and automate the deletion or stopping of unused resources. This proactive approach optimizes resource allocation, reducing costs and enhancing overall cloud efficiency.

To identify unused or underutilized cloud resources, regularly monitor usage and leverage tools for visibility. Here are the key points: 1) Implement tagging for resource categorization and employ automation to terminate idle resources, ensuring efficient scaling based on demand fluctuations. 2) Additionally, regularly analyze performance metrics, such as CPU utilization and storage usage, to pinpoint underutilized resources. 3) Establish clear polices for resource management, emphasizing documentation and team awareness to foster a proactive approach in identifying and addressing idle cloud assets. 4) This comprehensive strategy helps mitigate cloud waste and optimize resource utilization.

- Configure scaling policies to scale in during periods of low demand, avoiding underutilization. - Use cloud-native monitoring tools to track resource utilization metrics such as CPU, memory, storage, and network bandwidth.Also Set up alerts for abnormal resource usage patterns that may indicate underutilization. - Regularly review resource usage reports and leverage cost management tools to identify instances with low utilization. - Use cloud advisor services to identify idle or unused resources.

The challenge of cloud waste due to over-provisioning or under-provisioning mandates a strategic approach to resource management. Here are the key points: 1) Expertly right-sizing resources involves analyzing workload patterns and requirements, utilizing tools for optimal configuration, and implementing automation for dynamic scaling based on demand. 2) Enforcing policies, including limits and quotas, is crucial for cost control. This comprehensive strategy ensures efficient resource utilization, preventing unnecessary expenses and maintaining optimal performance and customer satisfaction.

Mitigate cloud waste by right-sizing resources to match actual needs. Analyze workload patterns and requirements, utilizing tools to determine optimal configurations and sizes. Implement automation for scaling resources based on demand, and establish policies to enforce limits and quotas on resource allocation. Avoid over-provisioning to prevent unnecessary costs and under-provisioning to ensure optimal performance and customer satisfaction. This approach ensures resource efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and improved overall cloud management.

Effectively manage cloud storage and backup to prevent waste. Implement a data lifecycle management strategy using tools to classify, archive, or delete data based on value and usage. Address duplicate, obsolete, or misplaced data. Utilize compression, deduplication, and encryption to reduce data size and cost. Implement policies to ensure data is stored in the most appropriate and cost-effective tier and region. This optimization strategy enhances efficiency, reduces costs, and ensures proper management of cloud storage resources.

To effectively manage cloud storage and minimize waste, consider these streamlined steps: - Adopt Data Lifecycle Management: Develop policies for handling data from creation to deletion, focusing on what to keep, archive, or remove. - Classify Data: Use tools to classify data based on value and usage, ensuring efficient storage. - Archive/Delete Data: Regularly archive seldom-accessed data and delete obsolete or redundant information to optimize storage space. - Reduce Data Volume: Implement compression and deduplication to decrease the amount of data stored, reducing costs. - Encrypt for Security: Secure sensitive data with encryption, both at rest and in transit, to uphold security standards.

Get into the habit of "clean-up" once a month. You don't need so much wasted space especially when you need to save or download more data for future work.

There are a lot of cloud native tools available to optimize your performance, cost and efficiency. AWS Auto Scaling Group (ASG) is a great feature which lets you scale your resources up or down based on the demand. Containers, Serverless computing, native aws services, AWS managed services are some services and features on AWS which help improve reliability and availability of your services. In my organization we were able to reduce the cost of RDS databases by 25% in the non-production environment by using the native RDS stop functionality during nights and weekends.

Enhance cloud performance and efficiency by leveraging cloud-native features and services. Explore options like serverless computing, containers, managed services, and spot instances to reduce operational overhead, improve scalability and reliability, and lower costs. Evaluate your architecture and design, utilizing tools to migrate or refactor applications for cloud-native capabilities. Adhere to best practices and standards to ensure compatibility and security in the cloud environment. This approach optimizes utilization of cloud resources and maximizes the benefits provided by the cloud service provider.

Ensure cost efficiency by monitoring and regularly reviewing your cloud expenses. Utilize tools offering detailed reports and dashboards to track, analyze, and optimize spending. Identify and eliminate anomalies, errors, or inefficiencies with tools providing recommendations and alerts for cost optimization. Compare and negotiate the best cloud pricing and discounts using specialized tools. Implement automation for recommended actions and use tools to assist in planning and budgeting cloud costs. This ongoing monitoring and optimization strategy help control and optimize your cloud expenditure effectively.

Cost efficiency can be only achieved by regularly monitoring and reviewing your cloud costs. There are various tools and dashboards available which help identify any cost anomalies and inefficiencies. On AWS, Cost Explorer is an excellent tool to show the detailed usage and cost breakdowns at a very granular level. AWS Cost Explorer comes with an easy-to-use interface that lets you visualize, understand, and manage your AWS cloud costs and usage over time.

One of the challenges in forecasting cloud costs is that some cloud service providers post usage/costs on a slightly delayed basis. For example, it may take 24 hours to see actual costs. Using a near real-time software add-on, you can better manage costs. Such software can also help you find idle resources that are racking up fees or have been forgotten by engineers.

FinOps is a practice aimed at optimizing cloud budgets. Beginning with this practice is crucial for making operations sustainable and innovation-driven within companies. To start, consider these points: * Spending comprehension * Team collaboration among finance, engineering, and operations * Implementing best engineering practices as an engineering platform to empower teams while maintaining standardized company cloud infrastructure * Automation to reduce the risk of human errors and improve delivery * Monitoring and Observability * Budgets for products and resources * Education on FinOps for teams * Continuous optimization.