Tackling the cost complexities of multi-cloud environments

It’s hard to imagine an enterprise environment without some touchpoint with the cloud today. Public, private or a combination of both, clouds have become indispensable part of an enterprise’s digital ecosystem – and with increasing cloud adoption, comes the complexities of managing the ‘cloud cover’ as it were.

Cost, especially, can be a big one. Unchecked cloud expenses can quickly escalate, impacting the bottom line. In this first ConnectED Thread article of a two-part series, we look at how, with the right approach and assistance, enterprises can optmise their cloud costs to make substantial savings while getting maximum value out of their cloud environment.

The cloud is here to stay and it's time to optimise

As organisations in India continue to invest in modernising IT, public cloud technologies sit at the heart of many organizations’ digital transformation strategies and have seen widespread adoption over the past few years.

According to an IDC estimate, the India public cloud services market was estimated at US$6.2 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a 2022–2027 CAGR of 23%. Though it offers a host of business benefits, the cloud also comes with a number of challenges both during the initial migration stage and later, while operating it.

The India public cloud services market was estimated at US$6.2 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a 2022–2027 CAGR of 23%.

What makes managing cloud costs so difficult?

Managing cloud costs can be a challenge for a range of reasons:

• Lack of visibility: Multiple services and distributed environments can make it challenging to gain full visibility into cloud expenses.
• Rapid growth: As organisations scale their cloud usage, cost management becomes more intricate, necessitating a proactive approach.
• Complex pricing models: The varied pricing models of cloud providers can be confusing, leading to unexpected costs.

Challenges around cost and performance occur as many of the cloud offerings are available in standard sizes (e.g., fix set of computes, storage) and not tailored for the enterprise’s specific business needs. In addition, cloud solutions are often not designed to meet specific industry regulations or stringent security protocols.

Getting over the cloud costs speed-bump

When embarking on the cloud journey enterprises should look at Investing in purpose-built cloud. They should work with cloud providers that can design the cloud solution specifically to meet their business needs. This will help avoid overconsumption or underconsumption of cloud resources, thus exactly meeting performance SLAs and investing only the required budget.

They should consider Industry-specific cloud solutions that are specifically designed to run applications specific to that industry and meet the set industry standards of security, compliance, quality, and availability.

The right service provider partner can make all the difference and that’s why it’s important that they work with one-stop-shop cloud service providers that offer end-to-end IT solutions ranging from cloud components, network connectivity, datacenter services, and managed services. This means having to deal with and manage fewer vendors which in turn makes managing the cloud environment easier and more cost-effective.

Enterprises must invest in developing multi-cloud management capabilities. One of the key factors critical to the success of hybrid cloud strategies is the integration of different cloud environments and on-premises IT. Enterprises should look at service providers that can offer means and technologies to integrate these different environments and help manage them centrally.

Managed services are the answer

These service providers are typically a managed service provider (MSP) who can offer and support these cloud services end-to-end. Working with these service providers can help save on cloud costs as they implement a range of strategies to optimise cloud costs, including:

• Right-sizing resources: MSPs analyse resource utilisation and recommend appropriate sizing to avoid overpaying for unused capacity.
• Reserved Instances: MSPs identify opportunities for leveraging reserved instances or savings plans, which offer cost predictability and significant savings.
• Spot Instances: For non-critical workloads, MSPs can utilise spot instances, which offer substantial cost savings compared to on-demand instances.

For instance, many enterprises have leveraged the Tata Communications IZO? cloud platform offerings and managed services as a cost-effective and robust solution to support their important business applications and services.

What are the drivers to cloud costs and what’s the secret to optimising them? Stay tuned for the next edition of the ConnectED Thread where we delve into not just the strategies and best practices for cloud cost optimisation but also a few key security and performance considerations while doing so.

Want to know how Tata Communications’ cloud solutions can help you? Visit: https://www.tatacommunications.com/solutions/cloud/