How the Right Controls and Automation Can Dramatically Reduce Cloud Waste

In our last post, we explained why poor design is the likely cause of high cloud costs. Many organizations pay three times more than necessary for cloud services because they don’t know how to optimize their applications and security tools. They also fail to take advantage of available tools for automated monitoring of cloud usage.

Waste is another source of cloud overspending, according to the Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report. As we noted in our last post, organizations estimate that 28 percent of their cloud spend is wasted — and that number is likely low. OpenMetal extrapolated the Flexera numbers and determined that enterprises waste $7.2 million annually and small to midsize businesses waste $1 million.

Much of this waste stems from a lack of effective cloud governance. Unless guided by policies and procedures, cloud consumers will typically take the path of least resistance. They will turn on the level of cloud services they think they might need without considering the potential cost. Often, these services are left to run indefinitely, constantly running up the bill.

However, there are things organizations can do to minimize waste and get a better handle on their cloud spend. It comes down to setting up automated systems that suspend or shut down cloud instances when unneeded.

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Time-Based Operating Windows

Many developer environments use on-demand instances, which have no long-term contractual commitments. You pay by the second for the compute capacity you use, with the flexibility to start, stop or terminate the instance whenever you want. This flexibility comes at a price — on-demand instances are more expensive than reserved and spot instances. When managed correctly, however, on-demand instances can be cost-effective in developer environments.

The problem is that these on-demand instances tend to get left on for a long time. If you leave it up to developers without proper controls in place, they will let them run 24 hours a day. Your bill will run 24 hours a day even though those instances aren’t being used. Developers will stand up an instance, do some work, then go on and do something else. You end up wasting a ton of money on compute.

DeSeMa can set up alerts that identify systems that aren’t in use for development. We can then deploy time-based operating windows that suspend an instance that’s been idle for a certain amount of time. When the developer comes back to it, it’s a simple matter of telling it to resume. It starts where it left off. This allows you to save 50 percent or more on the cost of these instances.

Controlling Test Environments

Test environments also contribute to cloud waste. When developers create instances to run stress or bench tests, they tend to leave them running. If you don’t have controls in place, these instances will sit there and chew up all the resources until the testing teams get around to checking on them.

This waste is eliminated if you’re running a true CI/CD pipeline with the correct automation. DeSeMa can help you set up automated tools that create the instance, run the stress test and then shut down the instance. The test results will be saved until the testing team gets around to it. Instead of these machines sitting there chewing up tons of compute power for days at a time, the platform will capture the results and shut down the instances.

Setting up these systems and controls usually requires a four- to eight-month engagement, depending on the organization’s size. But when we’re done, the organization has a trusted platform that uses only the resources that are needed.

Cloud waste costs organizations millions of dollars each year. Let DeSeMa help you utilize automated tools to shut down unused instances and reduce cloud waste significantly.