How do you make cloud resource use more cost-effective?

In the case of AWS, these official tools can help: AWS Cost Explorer: enables you to visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time. You can use it to analyze your spending trends, identify areas that need further inquiry, and see the impact of your cost optimization efforts. You can also use it to forecast your future spending based on your historical data. AWS Trusted Advisor: This tool provides you with real-time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices. You can use it to find underutilized or idle resources, optimize your EC2 instances, and reduce data transfer costs.

In a case of Azure Consider your workload's characteristics, budgetary constraints, scalability requirements, and long-term consumption estimates when selecting the optimal pricing plan in Azure. Azure Cost Management and Azure Pricing Calculator are useful tools for calculating and managing Azure expenditures based on your pricing model of choice. Consider using Azure Cost Management to track and optimise your expenses as your consumption habits change. Example of cost-effective methods in Azure Using Azure Hybrid Benefit, Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances, Azure Functions Consumption Plan

In a Case of Azure Azure cost monitoring and optimization are essential for cloud resource management. Set a budget and use Azure Cost Management and Billing to analyze spending and usage. Use resource tagging to organize and assign expenditures. Rightsize resources, employ Azure reservations, and auto-scale to meet demand. Audit and eliminate unused resources, optimize storage, and investigate serverless and PaaS. Monitoring network costs and setting cost alerts helps manage expenses. Continuous monitoring, modification, and automation using Azure Cost Management APIs optimize costs and maximize Azure investments.

In my azure subscription, I did the following things. 1. I have setup a budget alert to track the cost usage. 2. I always ask my people to add their name as tag against the resources created by them. 3. I request people to delete the resources, if they no longer needed it. 4. I request my people either to decomission the test VMs or switch off the VM. 5. Regularly connect with Finops team and get their feedback about our sizing and under utilizes resources.

To optimize cloud costs, start by understanding your needs to select appropriate resource types and sizes. Use budgeting tools like AWS Budgets or Azure Cost Management to set spending limits and receive alerts for anomalies. Leverage reserved instances or savings plans for predictable workloads, and Spot Instances for non-critical tasks. Consolidate billing across accounts to pool resources and maximize volume discounts. Regularly monitor usage with tools like AWS Cost Explorer or Azure Cost Management to identify inefficiencies and rightsizing opportunities. Implement tagging for better tracking and use lifecycle policies to optimize storage costs. Periodically review strategies to stay aligned with changing needs.

As workloads expand, consider sharing resources or provisioning them across several accounts to manage them efficiently. Even with distinct development, testing, and production environments, secure sharing is feasible and does not compromise organizational structure. This approach not only saves on operational costs but also maximizes resource utilization, resulting in greater consistency.