Cost Management Challenges In Cloud Computing

Vedant Ghodke
Challenges In Cloud Computing
4 min readJun 4, 2022

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Vedant Ghodke | 01st June, 2022

In the last blog titled “Data Security and Privacy Challenges In Cloud Computing”, we had a look at the key challenges in cloud computing revolving around Data Security and Privacy. Along with privacy, the paying capacity of consumers and the management of subscription services cost also play a vital factor in the smooth functioning of cloud services.

The sting of cost overruns is the first ache the customers feel when they migrate more and more operations to the cloud. The main motive is to analyze the reason and causes behind this. Organizational budgets are already set aside and initial sizing is already completed. On the other hand, costs are the first to cause IT management problems on an immediate basis. It is clear that all businesses need a structure to incorporate cost-effective measures.

Image Source: Auxis

According to Nutanix’s Enterprise cloud index, 64% of businesses intend to operate in multi-cloud setups within three years. Simultaneously, 43% agreed that controlling expenses across settings is difficult. Moving workloads across clouds is also projected to boost expenses, according to those polled.

In practice, cost savings might be difficult to obtain. Some of the benefits of the cloud, such as its capacity to scale up fast, can make cost control more difficult. With more companies opting for a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud approach, CIOs must ensure that agility does not come at a significant cost.

Hurdles For Cloud Cost Optimization

Cost optimization in the cloud might be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. As resources in your corporate account accumulate, the chore of managing your business’ cloud might appear intimidating. This, quite conclusively, may result in cloud sprawl and other instances of cloud overspending.

Image Source: Microsoft Azure

Not every company has the time or resources to review its monthly cloud bills and constantly improve its cloud infrastructure costs. Let’s look at some of the problems involved with cloud efficiency measures and how cloud cost optimization tools may help you minimise cloud prices to learn more about how you can avoid overpaying on the cloud.

Complexity Of Billing And Cost Drivers

Monthly cloud invoices are typically confusing and replete with technological specifics that render them unreadable by your finance staff. According to a research conducted by Gartner, “Cloud pricing is the most perplexing portion of adopting public cloud services for 95% of business and IT leaders.”

It gets more challenging when organizations are using numerous cloud providers or using a hybrid cloud architecture, which adds to the complexity of reporting cloud expenses and utilisation in different ways. This creates even more ambiguity and the need for supervision on the path to cloud cost reduction.

Image Source: Cloud Assert

Furthermore, most cloud service providers have the ability and will modify their charging procedures over time. This implies that your cloud invoices might vary greatly from month to month, requiring you to go through a completely new set of cloud bills.

Cloud cost management tools can assist in sifting through the sections of the invoice that drive up expenses, ultimately assisting in the elimination of cloud waste. These tools help you to discover cloud wastes and make modifications to minimise your cloud expenditure by dissolving your cloud expenses that vary from month — to — month (anomalies).

Poor Visibility Into Cloud Expenditure

Cloud sprawl is a major issue that many firms encounter. This is the uncontrolled expansion of public clouds, cloud services, or even cloud service providers that occurs when a company fails to effectively control and maintain its cloud computing resources.

How can consumers correctly manage the cloud charges if they don’t have the right tools? When they cannot see the billing or cloud expenditure data correctly over time, it is tough to make cost-cutting decisions. The lack of insight into cloud applications has obvious financial consequences.

Image Source: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Business and IT managers must be diligent when it comes to cloud cost optimization. According to one research, almost two-thirds (64%) of businesses attempted to reduce cloud spending in 2019, and the same is likely to be true now. Businesses might quickly lose charge of their cloud expenditures without effective monitoring and management.

An easy dashboard will give the essential visibility to reduce expenses and provide advice on how to adopt the best cost-cutting techniques. Other challenges, such as billing complexity and forecasting, really depend on the actual cloud cost optimization tool you choose.

Conclusion

When it comes to optimum management of cloud operational costs, it is imperative that businesses and organizations must be extremely vigilant. Over 68% of organisations made attempts to reduce their cloud spending in 2019, and that likely still holds true now as of 2022, with the ubiquitous existence of the pandemic. Businesses might quickly lose control of their cloud costs if they are not properly monitored and managed. Other issues, such as billing intricacy and forecast, are entirely dependent on the cloud cost optimization technology you use.

Hope that my attempt of highlighting the importance of Cloud Cost Management challenges in Cloud Computing was enriching!

Thank you for visiting! Do check out our other blogs in this series!

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