Cloud Wasted

Every year, billions of dollars are wasted on unused cloud resources worldwide. Cloud waste is the term used for this waste, which occurs when more cloud resources are used than are necessary to run a business. Many companies began transitioning to the public cloud to make employees more productive and flexible and enable them to act faster. However, they are not only reaping the benefits of the transition to the cloud but also facing the downside of an unpredictable business model in which cloud expenses grow exponentially and become a risk for the organisation.

In multi-cloud environments, employees often use an infinite number of on-demand IT resources, leading to a snowball effect of unexpected and unnecessary costs. Research shows that companies spent almost 45% of their cloud budget on IT resources not intended for production applications and used only during the forty-hour workweek. These resources do not need to be available 24/7, but payment is still required.

Cloud waste occurs when organisations set up IT infrastructures that offer much more than they actually need. It is like buying a Ferrari to go to the park when a bicycle is sufficient. Not adequately supervised developers contribute to this problem by not taking software out of circulation after completing a project or by not informing the ops teams that they are ready. Unused cloud resources, such as infrastructure that remains unused outside of working hours, are a third, common cause of cost overruns.

Identifying these three causes of cloud waste is not rocket science. The question then arises as to why organisations are not doing enough about it.

Cloud waste is a popular topic of discussion and an important focus for most IT managers. However, many organisations have issues with reducing it for three main reasons:

• Lack of central supervision. The cloud allows for on-demand provisioning, meaning anyone within the organisation can spend money on the cloud without central supervision.
• Insufficient supervision of provisioning. For example, companies are unable to say that developers may not use premium instances at this stage of development.
• There is insufficient oversight and supervision within organisations to withdraw cloud resources outside working hours for workloads that are not part of production applications or to take cloud resources out of circulation when their time to live has expired.

All of these three points have a common thread: insufficient supervision of the provisioning of cloud resources. Addressing this issue requires a solution that provides an overview and control of cloud costs at a company-wide level.

Reducing cloud waste requires a systematic management approach. Some organisations choose to perform this complex task manually, while others attempt to automate provisioning, compliance, and management with specialised software for automating cloud infrastructures.

The following three core components are essential when automating cloud infrastructures:

• Collaborative infrastructure-as-code. It makes it possible to use a consistent, collaboration-based approach to defining cloud resources, automating their creation, and then standardising and approving code in reusable components (modules).
• Multi-cloud environment management. Provides a single, unified view of cloud resource usage across multiple clouds.
• Continuous cloud cost optimisation. Allows organisations to automatically adjust cloud resources to ensure they are used efficiently while minimising waste.

To conclude, addressing cloud waste requires a comprehensive solution that provides visibility and control over cloud costs, continuous optimisation of cloud resources, and a consistent, collaborative, and automated approach.