SaveOn.cloud

According to the 2020 State of the Cloud report¹, 73% of companies using cloud infrastructure have identified “Optimize existing use of cloud (cost savings)” as a top initiative for 2020. This has been a top reported priority for the fourth year in a row.

If you’re reading this article, you’re probably familiar with the challenges of managing and justifying cloud expenses. Perhaps it has become a large cost for your company; and has garnered finance and executive attention.

The purpose of this website is to help you manage your organization’s cloud infrastructure expense.

We will provide resources, strategies, best practices, and practical guidance toward this goal. We will address basics of financial management, cost accounting, and attribution practices. We will look at in-depth platform and service-specific design and operation techniques to reduce costs.

Our goal is to equip the reader to make a substantial impact for their organization.

The Why

First we start with the “why”. Why do we seek to better manage and reduce cloud spend? The desire to not waste money may seem obvious and universal. But not every person, nor every company, puts the same priority on cost saving and efficiency initiatives.

What is your motivation for engaging in this exercise?

• Have you been asked by your boss to reduce spend?
• Is managing cloud spend formally part of your job?
• Are you being proactive in recognizing the need to reduce or manage cost?
• Is this a top org or department-level initiative and you need to lead or contribute to?
• Have costs grown uncomfortably fast and you need to rein them in?
• Do you need to clear some budget room for additional initiatives?
• Has cloud spend come under executive level scrutiny?
• Do company leaders wonder where it is all going, or wonder what they’re getting for the expense?
• Is it unclear what the cost drivers are for your cloud spend?
• Are you unable to forecast your expected cloud spend in response to customer growth or company changes?
• Are solutions designed and features implemented with no regard to cost?

If the answer to any of these is “Yes”, then this resource has been created for you.

Whatever the objective of your organization, I am confident it can make better use of its financial resources than giving them, wastefully, to a cloud provider.

References