You want to take the right action, but you can’t move fast enough or you can’t find the talent you need. You’ve been deploying to the cloud for years, but now you have so many problems to solve to reduce cloud waste. You’ve adopted FinOps quickly, but you’ve learned that you have to fix the process. FinOps isn’t a magic tool that can solve all your problems.
Still an unresolved issue
Hashikov’s latest Cloud Strategy Status SurveyAccording to , 91% of respondents said there is waste in their cloud spending. This is a big problem, especially considering that 66% of organizations increased their cloud spending in the past year alone. Despite efforts to implement FinOps and other cost management frameworks, many companies have yet to learn from the mistakes of the past decade. The main causes of cloud waste include lack of necessary skills, overprovisioning, and idle resources.
The adoption of cloud technologies has outpaced the development of the necessary technical capabilities, leaving many enterprises inefficient in provisioning, managing, and optimizing their cloud resources. The most common excuse for cloud computing overspenders is that they can’t find the help they need to maximize their cloud resource utilization. They’re saddled with years of cloud-based technical debt, hoping someone or some tool will do it all for them. But that’s not how it’s going to work.
The root cause of this problem is that enterprises take a ‘safe’ approach of allocating more cloud resources than they need. This avoids potential performance issues and outages due to resource shortages, but it also increases costs significantly. Resources that are provisioned but not properly utilized are a waste. These idle resources often go unnoticed and continue to incur costs.
It is surprising how many companies still make this mistake, even though it is the basics of cloud cost management. What is even more disappointing is that most companies know this but are not finding a better solution. Cloud service providers do not tell customers how to optimize and properly adjust their resources. In fact, the cloud service provider’s recommendations often lead to overprovisioning of resources.
Cloud maturity still lacking
HashiCorp’s survey highlights one important point: Cloud maturity is a critical factor in how enterprises manage their cloud spending. Higher-maturity organizations report lower costs, faster time to market, and greater benefits from a skilled cloud workforce. In fact, 73 percent of higher-maturity organizations have increased their cloud spending, compared to 62 percent of lower-maturity organizations, demonstrating the correlation between maturity and efficient cloud spending.
To address these inefficiencies, companies must adopt a multifaceted approach. Closing the skills gap is essential. Companies must invest in training and upskilling their workforce so they have the knowledge to effectively manage and optimize cloud resources. Investing in human capital can yield significant cost savings over time.
Implementing and adhering to FinOps principles is a requirement, not a recommendation. It includes continuously monitoring cloud spending, setting budgets, and optimizing workloads to avoid overprovisioning. Effective practices also involve regular financial and operational audits. We recommend using external auditors rather than taking on the risk of your own audits.
AI-based automation tools can play a key role in preventing unnecessary costs due to idle resources by provisioning resources only when needed and releasing them when not in use. A robust cost governance framework is also essential for cloud cost management. This framework should include policies for resource provisioning, usage monitoring, and cost optimization. Governance ensures that best practices are followed across the organization and that all stakeholders are on the same page.
I have long highlighted the important lessons for cloud cost efficiency. However, the fact that these issues still persist means that we still have a long way to go to perfect cloud cost management. By investing in technology, rigorously applying FinOps principles, leveraging automation, adopting strong governance, and performing regular audits, enterprises can transform cloud spending from a cost burden to a strategic asset.
editor@itworld.co.kr
Source: www.itworld.co.kr
