Transparency

In addition to all cloud cost optimization, responsible handling of resources in the cloud is needed, says Thomas Köppner, Solution Consultant at Apptio. The first step is to create the necessary sense of responsibility through cost transparency and cause-based allocation. Teams need to understand what costs they are incurring through their type of cloud usage and what the core cost drivers are. The second step is not only to show the costs, but also to charge them to the teams via internal cost allocation. If cost-effective use of the cloud is one of the goals, cloud costs will no longer rise unchecked, but instead investments will be made in cloud services where the business benefits justify the expenditure.

Resources and Multicloud

Cost management for multicloud environments is an art in itself. A wide range of options are available for optimization - if they are understood and used correctly. This guideline explains what is important and which criteria are essential. When it comes to cloud costs, it's like in real life: you already know roughly how things could actually be better. But first, you have to do it, and second, you have to understand exactly how. Billing and usage analytics, recommendations and dashboard overviews - cloud cost optimization tools are available and can simplify a lot. But to efficiently manage multicloud ecosystems economically, you need a cross-provider view and automation for cloud financial management. In order to exploit these opportunities, Apptio has developed a guideline for the seven most important levers from project practice.

Four out of ten companies are now adopting a cloud-first strategy, in which they give preference to new IT projects but do not necessarily implement them in the cloud, and migrate existing systems or applications to the cloud as required. Compared to the previous year, this is an increase of nine percentage points. The trend towards cloud solutions is also reflected in the proportion of companies with a cloud-only strategy: in 2021, 5 percent used cloud computing for all systems or applications; in 2022, the proportion has risen to 9 percent. This is the result of the Cloud Monitor 2022, a representative survey conducted by Bitkom Research on behalf of KPMG among 552 companies with 20 or more employees in Germany.

The current situation of economic uncertainty is keeping many companies looking at their fixed cost positions. In the IT sector, cloud solutions represent a cost-efficient and cost-flexible option compared to on-premises solutions. Accordingly, more than three quarters of companies cite cost reduction as a goal of their cloud computing strategy. Reducing CO2 emissions also plays an important role for every second company when deciding on a cloud solution. Cloud deployment enables experimentation with new applications and business models at lower cost and greater flexibility and speed. Every third company therefore hopes for more agility from cloud solutions, for example in the form of flexible cooperation with partners via cloud platforms. 

In recent years, the entry into the cloud has been cost-driven in many companies. Due to the current economically volatile times, cost efficiency will certainly remain a decisive factor - however, cloud solutions offer far more potential. The success evaluation of cloud-first strategies is significantly influenced by public cloud costs. Understanding them better and better and anchoring cloud financial management more and more directly in DevOps teams as well is an important process. After all, their expertise is crucial to creating not only a reliable but also economically viable model for operations with cloud infrastructures.