the first step in reducing waste is to determine where it originates. And according to Anodot’s study, a review of any cloud bill identifies three elements: services, utilization, and unit price. Facets of each can be wasteful when not managed properly and when costs are not aligned to the business. Beyond the invoice, more data are needed to understand the minutiae of cloud spending. In fact, 63 percent of the companies surveyed say they “seem” to have their cloud costs under control, but 37 percent of the IT executives acknowledged that they have been caught off guard about the cost of their cloud services. That’s understandable, given the cloud’s pay-for-what-you-use pricing model. Pay as you go Because of cloud’s pay-for-whatyou-use pricing model, costs need to be managed carefully, or it becomes easy to lose track of what’s being used, Anodot’s study stated. This is especially true for organizations with large development teams that move quickly and tend to try new things. Unfortunately for those company, the surprise costs only are discovered when the monthly invoice arrives. Understanding a company’s “bottom line” also is necessary. If cloud spending increases or the invoices contain unexpected costs, and the company is not raising more revenue, the result is a diminishing bottom line. Because of this, cloud costs can no longer be considered an IT line item, as it is the entire company’s responsibility to raise revenue. Fortunately, cloud providers realize the dilemma facing organization, so they often provide their customers free access to basic cost management tools as part of a billing dashboard. In addition, third-party tools are available to manage and optimize the cloud environment. Such third-party tools tend to be more granular in the metrics they use and the information they provide to aid with cloud configuration, usage and cost control. In addition, many third-party tools work across cloud platforms, making it easier to manage multi-cloud environments. According to researchers at Anodot, native tools are those provided by the cloud platform providers, for example, AWS Cost & Usage Report, Billing Dashboard, and Cost Explorer from AWS; Azure Cost Management from Microsoft; and Cloud Console from Google. Other third-party tools, and even homegrown tools, often are part of the cloud cost management mix to gain more in-depth information or to measure costs across multiple cloud platforms. Containers have become essential building blocks for cloud infrastructure. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of IT leaders say they use container tools to build more cloud infrastructure. The promises of containers are shorter software development and release cycles, easier application upgrades and maintenance, better utilization of cloud resources, on-demand scale, and portability between clouds — all potential drivers of corporate revenue growth. At the same time, containers cost less than traditional virtual machines. However, a drawback of a container orchestration system such as Kubernetes is that it obscures an organization’s view into the true costs of each of its cloud services. What types of tools do you use to manage and optimize cloud usage? Source: Anodot ‘2022 State of Cloud Cost Report’ Employees with women managers are more likely to say that their manager has supported and helped them over the past ye r. Source: McKinsey & Co. 19 31 61 42 29 21 54 36 24 16 50% 38% 34% 27% 19% 68% Native tools Actions taken by managers to support employees, by manager’s gender, % of repondents Third-party solution that manages multi-cloud environments Multiple third-party solutions Built our own One third-party solution Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Checked in on overall well-being Povided emotional support percentage points Helped make sure workload was manageable Helped navigate work-life challenges Helped take actions to prevent or manage burnout +12 +7 +6 +5 +5 BUYERS SIDE 28 CHANNELV ISION | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2022 ... cloud costs can no longer be considered an IT line item, as it is the entire company’s responsibility to raise revenue. (Story continues on pg 74)
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