Cloud Optimization: Definition
Cloud optimization involves maximizing the use of a company’s cloud services over time, efficiently utilizing available resources while minimizing costs. Cloud optimization occurs when a company manages to provide only the resources necessary for the proper functioning of its applications. When available resources are too extensive for the needs, this is referred to as resource over-provisioning, leading to additional costs for the company. Conversely, a lack of resources can lead to malfunctioning of Cloud services and, ultimately, a poor user experience (application unavailability, bugs, long loading times, etc.).
Since a company’s Cloud service needs are constantly evolving, strategies such as automation can be implemented for ongoing Cloud optimization.
Why is Cloud Optimization Important?
As the use of Cloud services in business becomes more widespread, not all organizations have yet undertaken an approach to optimize their Cloud resources. Yet, good management is crucial for many reasons:
- Cost Reduction: As with any other stock of products or goods, good management of Cloud resources helps reduce costs and allocate a budget in line with the actual needs of the company. The organization can then make significant savings on this expense item.
- Improved Flexibility: Cloud optimization allows companies to more easily respond to workload fluctuations and quickly associate the necessary resources. This can be achieved through various methods such as automating tasks, setting up alerts for budget overruns, etc.
- Enhanced Risk Management: Cloud optimization provides more flexibility and responsiveness, enabling organizations to plan the resilience of their systems and respond to risks threatening their availability and performance, thus ensuring operational continuity.
Optimization consists of a balance between a high-performing organization and a fair and safe distribution of resources.
What are the Different Strategies for Cloud Optimization?
Various strategies can be implemented to optimize a company’s Cloud services. These can be combined to maximize performance and are applied according to the organization’s needs.
Appropriate Sizing:
This process continuously analyzes the performance of Cloud services and adjusts resources (storage, virtual machines, etc.) according to load requirements. You only pay for the capacity your company needs.
For example, Azure offers Azure Advisor, analyzing and advising on Cloud resources to reduce costs.
Management of Reservations:
Reserving instances over a long duration allows companies to obtain lower prices than those for on-demand instances. This is especially useful when tasks are constant and predictable. Be careful: reserving a machine for three years while using it only for one will result in a loss of its potential. Make judicious reservations.
Use of Provisioning Models:
Provisioning models like “spot” or “excess” allow access to virtual machines or other Cloud resources at a lower price, but with the condition that these resources may be interrupted or withdrawn at any time depending on the needs of the Cloud service provider. This strategy suits companies that can tolerate interruptions.
Removal of Unused Resources:
Regularly identifying and removing unused resources helps reduce costs without affecting performance. Establishing good governance is essential to ensure this point.
Automation:
By automating repetitive tasks, companies improve the operational efficiency of their Cloud services.
Adoption of Serverless Architecture:
This only relies on the actual computing time performed and can thus drastically reduce costs. Note that some serverless services offered are paid on a pay-as-you-go basis to meet SLA constraints and be the fastest.
Continuous Monitoring:
By creating continuous monitoring systems for their Cloud services, companies can quickly detect anomalies and adjust their resources accordingly. Using tags to identify resources and metrics is an excellent way to dynamically resize the information system.
Migration to Managed Services:
By going through Cloud providers, organizations can benefit from managed services, allowing them to optimize their system while offloading certain tasks. Some providers may also advise you on the best way to manage your Cloud services.
How to Optimize the Cloud?
Here are some additional tips for optimizing your Cloud use:
1.
Consider what you want to achieve through the Cloud. A precise analysis of your needs will allow you to determine the type of services required, the resources to allocate, and the expected results.
2.
Learn about the best practices in Cloud security and compliance and implement them to best protect your system and your data.
3.
Continuously train on the latest trends to continue optimizing your Cloud service to the maximum.
How Much Does It Cost to Optimize Your Cloud?
Optimizing a company’s Cloud requires a variable budget depending on the size of the organization, its infrastructure, its specific needs, and more broadly, the scope of its activity in the Cloud. Often profitable for companies, it is nonetheless advisable to consider certain aspects to determine upfront the costs associated with optimizing its Cloud:
- Tools and software solutions: most tools and software solutions require a purchase or subscription to their services. Some services are included in your offer like Cost Explorer/Trusted Advisor with AWS or Azure Advisor.
- Human resources: recruitment and training costs are to be expected for companies that do not already have Cloud experts within their IT department. The company can choose to recruit internally or to use specialized consultants. In the latter case, we invite you to read the article IT Services and Consulting Companies: Ranking and List of the Best in French-speaking Switzerland (2023) to help you choose the IT services and consulting firm that will accompany you.
- Work time: whether for its initial setting, continuous monitoring, or adjusting its strategy according to the company’s needs, optimizing the Cloud requires time and will represent a significant part of your employees’ working time.
- Analysis of potential costs: and as a plan rarely goes without a hitch, it is important for the company to assess the potential costs associated with the non-optimization of its Cloud (excessive bills, revenue losses following system unavailability…). Although Cloud optimization represents a financial investment at its setup, it is amortized over the long term and represents a gain in efficiency and performance for the organization.
Qim info supports you in optimizing your Cloud
Do your cloud services experience bottlenecks that could disappear with an optimization strategy?
At Qim info, our experts offer you custom cloud consulting services, in line with your needs and the context of your company.
We help you think, build, and optimize your Cloud infrastructure to transform your way of working and thus reduce your time-to-market while ensuring the efficiency of your IT system. Qim info also offers support (maintenance, incident resolution, updates) for your Cloud infrastructure.
Whether you choose a service mode in delegation or in the form of a “project”, using an IT services and consulting firm presents many advantages. Benefit from the expertise of our handpicked cloud experts for the period necessary for the proper implementation of your cloud optimization strategy.
At Qim info, our team of Cloud specialists accompanies you at every stage of your optimization project. Our multi-vendor experience allows us to define your new turnkey architecture, facilitate its migration, and optimize its costs. We also orchestrate your containers and microservices for better availability of your information system.
What are the benefits of optimizing a company's Cloud?
Optimizing a company’s Cloud offers numerous benefits such as cost reduction, improved performance and availability of the company’s IT services, more agility to quickly adapt to technological evolutions… All these advantages can lead to improved overall performance of the company.
What are the best practices for Cloud optimization?
Analyzing your needs, using managed services, monitoring your costs, optimizing your performance… are all good practices for Cloud optimization. By following these good practices and those previously mentioned in our article, you can ensure optimal cloud service within your organization.
