5 Cloud Finance Metrics To Ensure Cost-Efficient Cloud Spending

5 Cloud Finance Metrics To Ensure Cost-Efficient Cloud Spending
Image Courtesy: Pixabay

Businesses are well conscious of the significance of monitoring cloud spending, — particularly in these economically turbulent times.

But how do you assess the cost-effectiveness of your cloud? Which cloud finance metrics must you monitor, and how should you gather the data that drives them?

This article addresses those concerns by examining five major cloud spending metrics, as well as what they quantify and how to track them.

Data Egress vs. Total Data Costs

Overlooking egress fees in cloud computing can result in substantial wastage of funds. It is essential to keep track of these fees, as they are charged when data is moved out of cloud providers’ systems. By comparing the total data egress costs, which can be found on your cloud computing bill, with the amount of data stored in the cloud, you can manage this risk effectively.

Since egress costs generally increase as the total amount of data stored in the cloud grows, it is crucial to track both data points together. If you observe an increase in egress costs but no corresponding growth in data, it could indicate ineffective egress management. Therefore, monitoring these data points is vital to optimizing your cloud computing expenses.

Total Cloud Disks Unattached

Active but unused storage resources, known as unattached cloud disks, can lead to unnecessary cloud spending. To optimize cost efficiency, it is recommended to shut down unattached disks whenever possible.

Monitoring the number of unattached disks that are active provides valuable information about the financial efficiency of your cloud environment. By tracking this metric, you can identify and address any areas where resources are not being used optimally, thus reducing unnecessary expenses and increasing cost efficiency.

Instances of Idle VM

Keeping track of idle VM instances is crucial to optimize cloud computing costs. While each cloud provider may have a slightly different criterion for identifying idle instances, most offer the ability to track them through their management portals.

Idle instances are those that have been running for an extended period while using minimal CPU. By monitoring the number of such instances, you can identify areas where you may be wasting money on resources that aren’t serving any useful purpose.

This information enables you to take proactive measures, such as shutting down idle instances or optimizing resource allocation, to improve cost efficiency in your cloud environment.

Consumed Resources vs. Provisioned Resources

Monitoring the CPU and memory resource consumption of your VMs relative to their assigned resources is a crucial cloud finance metric.

Ideally, the consumed resources should approach the total provisioned resources but never equal them. If you find that the total consumed resources consistently fall significantly below the total provisioned resources, it suggests that your VM instances are overprovisioned.

To achieve better cost performance, it is recommended to get them rightsized or use autoscaling to optimize resource allocation based on actual usage. By keeping a close eye on this metric, you can ensure that your cloud resources are being used optimally, thereby reducing unnecessary expenses and maximizing cost efficiency.

Untagged Resources

Tracking the total number of untagged cloud resources is a straightforward yet valuable metric for optimizing cloud computing costs. Untagged resources refer to those that have not been labeled with tags, which help admins track their purpose.

While untagged resources don’t incur extra fees, having many of them can make it harder to track your cloud environment efficiently. By monitoring this metric, you can assess how well-managed your cloud environment is and identify resources that may be wasting money.

In a financially efficient cloud, you would typically have very few, if any, untagged resources. Therefore, keeping this metric in check can help you streamline your cloud environment, reduce unnecessary expenses, and achieve better cost efficiency.

Conclusion

To maintain a healthy cloud computing bill, it’s crucial to keep a close eye on your cloud finance metrics. By tracking cloud cost metrics continuously and closely, you can gain valuable insights into your spending patterns, identify areas where costs can be optimized, and take proactive measures to prevent wasteful spending.

Add Comment

Click here to post a comment