Case Study: Organizations migrating to or expanding within the cloud often face the challenge of managing and controlling escalating costs. A client found themselves experiencing unexpectedly high cloud bills, a common issue stemming from inefficient resource utilization, including instances of compute instance over-provisioning, and a lack of clear cost governance across their environment. They needed a systematic approach to identify savings and establish sustainable cost management practices applicable across their cloud footprint.
(Note: This case study illustrates Imereda Technologies’ expertise in diagnosing and resolving common cloud cost challenges, leveraging proven, cloud-agnostic strategies and tools to deliver measurable savings across various platforms like Azure, AWS, and GCP.)
The Challenge: The client was grappling with increasing cloud expenditures. Key issues included:
- Over-provisioned compute instances (Virtual Machines) and other cloud resources, leading to unnecessary spending.
- Lack of visibility into where costs were being incurred across different cloud services or platforms.
- Absence of a formal process or strategy for continuous cost management and optimization.
- Difficulty in aligning cloud spending with departmental or project budgets.
Imereda Technologies’ Solution & Approach:
Imereda Technologies implemented a comprehensive cloud cost optimization strategy tailored to the client’s specific environment(s), whether single-cloud or multi-cloud. Our multi-phased approach focused on achieving immediate cost reduction while establishing a framework for ongoing financial control, applicable across their cloud platforms:
Phase 1: In-depth Assessment and Analysis Our process began with a thorough analysis of the client’s cloud infrastructure to pinpoint the sources of high costs:
- Infrastructure Health Check: We conducted a detailed review of their cloud architecture, identifying improperly configured or inefficient resources.
- Resource Utilization Analysis: Using appropriate cloud-native monitoring tools and cloud advisor services, we analyzed compute instance performance and usage metrics to identify underutilized, over-provisioned, or idle resources ripe for optimization across their deployed services (compute, storage, databases, etc.).
- Cost Allocation Mapping: We helped the client gain clarity by mapping costs to specific departments, projects, or applications using cloud cost management platforms.
Phase 2: Implementing Strategic Optimization Based on our findings, we implemented concrete actions to reduce expenditure across their cloud services:
- Rightsizing and Cleanup: We recommended and assisted with rightsizing compute instances and databases to match actual workload demands and identified idle resources for deallocation or deletion.
- Leveraging Cloud Discount Programs:
- Implemented Reserved Capacity or Reserved Instances for predictable, steady-state workloads, securing significant discounts compared to on-demand rates on their respective cloud platform(s).
- Strategically deployed Spot or Preemptible Instances for non-critical or interruptible workloads, accessing unused compute capacity at substantial cost savings.
- Implementing Autoscaling: Configured Autoscaling groups or scale sets with dynamic rules based on performance metrics (like CPU, memory, or network traffic). This ensures compute resources automatically scale in during low demand and scale out during peaks, optimizing performance and cost efficiency while minimizing waste.
Phase 3: Establishing Cost Governance and Continuous Monitoring To ensure long-term cost control, we helped the client build robust, sustainable governance guardrails across their cloud environment(s):
- Budget Management: Configured cloud cost management platforms and budgeting tools to set spending limits at various scopes (accounts, projects, resource groups) and trigger alerts when thresholds were approached.
- Expenditure Tracking: Set up ongoing monitoring using cloud monitoring and cost analysis tools to provide real-time visibility into spending patterns, enabling finance and management teams to make informed decisions. Cloud advisor services continued to provide proactive optimization recommendations.
- Controlled Provisioning: Implemented Approval Processes for new resource provisioning requests using cloud-native policy enforcement and role-based access control mechanisms. This ensures new resources align with strategic and budget goals before deployment.
Results & Business Impact:
By partnering with Imereda Technologies for Cloud Cost Optimization, the client achieved:
- Significant Cost Reduction: Identified and implemented measures resulting in substantial savings on their cloud expenditure, freeing up budget for innovation.
- Improved Cost Visibility: Gained clear, centralized insights into cloud spending across their entire cloud footprint, even in multi-cloud environments.
- Enhanced Financial Control: Established governance policies and automated processes to manage budgets and control future costs effectively.
- Optimized Resource Utilization: Ensured cloud resources were right-sized and scaled efficiently according to actual needs.
- Framework for Continuous Optimization: Put in place tools and processes for ongoing monitoring and cost management across their chosen cloud platforms.
Take Control of Your Cloud Spending – On Any Platform:
High cloud costs can hinder growth and innovation. Imereda Technologies specializes in helping businesses like yours gain control over cloud expenditures, optimize resource utilization, and implement effective cost management strategies that deliver measurable savings, regardless of whether you use Azure, AWS, GCP, or a hybrid approach.