Many businesses are turning to cloud services to assist their operations as they continue to adopt new working practices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many organizations, especially small and medium-sized ones, run the danger of overspending on cloud services due to hurried cloud expenditures and a lack of due diligence procedures (SMBs). The 2021 State of the Cloud Study from Flexera found that 34% of SMBs acknowledged paying much more than anticipated on cloud services.
The opaqueness of pricing methods is one of the key causes of excessive spending on cloud services. It might be difficult to evaluate pricing plans because some cloud providers employ a variety of terminologies and complex pricing systems. This may lead to unanticipated expenses and negating flexibility provided by cloud technology.
When it comes to cloud pricing, please keep these four points in mind (the last one is the most important):
Data Transfer
Using cloud services has various advantages, one of which is the accessibility of data from any location. Depending on the amount of data, billing, speed of data transfers, these are all considerations that may have an impact on your hosting invoice. Based on the amount of data committed and uplink sizes needed, cloud providers may impose different fees for data transfer. Ingress fees may apply when moving data into the cloud, and egress fees may apply when moving data out of the cloud or to another location.
Operations and Capacity
When selecting a cloud provider, storage capacity is a crucial cost factor to consider, but charges may quickly increase if a business wants cloud instances in numerous locations around the world with a lot of data. It is important to select a storage and operations strategy that matches the use case. For example, backup services are made for storing data for a long time and performing few activities on it. Although the cost of storing the data will be inexpensive, processing it would be expensive.
Vendor Lock-in
Even with the high cost of data transport, leaving a certain cloud service provider could be prohibitive. When transferring applications to a different hosting option, businesses must consider the requirement to adapt the applications. It is advisable to look for a cloud provider that uses open, transportable, and interoperable standards and initiatives if you want to prevent vendor lock-in. To avoid being tied to a single vendor, businesses should also consider open-source and standardized technologies.
Diversify into Multi-Cloud, Multi-Vendor and Hybrid Cloud Approaches
This is an easy one, but also the most important. In today’s day and age, with IT infrastructure being one of the top expenditures for software related companies, would you put all your eggs into one IT basket? I advise companies to find vendors who can hybridize and directly connect to your favorite hyperscaler instances. In today’s market, A16z said it best: “Not starting in the cloud is crazy but staying in the cloud is also crazy.” Coding and building your infrastructure to become agnostic is the key to success as an early CTO. Yes, take advantage of the free credits, but keep in mind the potential to migrate/diversify with infrastructure hosts that can play nicely with other providers and data centers.
By providing clear, transparent pricing structures without any hidden charges, Leaseweb can help companies know what they are going to spend on a monthly basis. Most importantly we can hybridize with a mixture of dedicated servers to your preferred hyperscaler and directly connect to your cloud instances using our Cloud Connect product.
We are devoted to offering our customers clear pricing and simple-to-understand pricing methods because we recognize the importance of cost transparency. We provide a variety of services that may be tailored to meet the needs of various businesses, and our pricing plans are flexible.
In conclusion, while selecting a cloud service, avoiding hidden fees and vendor lock-in is essential. By considering these key areas, companies can make an informed decision when selecting a cloud provider that fits their needs. With Leaseweb, clients can rest assured that they are getting transparent pricing and high-quality cloud services that are tailored to their business needs.