What are the Challenges involved in Cloud Cost Optimization?
Tags: beginners, cloudcomputing
Published: 2023-09-15 12:01:04

In current times, when businesses need to stay relevant by adopting digitization, there has been a considerable increase in the adoption of the cloud. There are two-fold reasons for this.  The first one is during the Pandemic, businesses realize the importance of staying resilient, and secondly, the impending recession and high inflation are forcing companies to rethink and reimagine their cloud spending. There are many tools in the market for optimizing cloud resources, bringing cost efficiency and productivity into businesses. However, a mindset shift is needed for companies to make a progressive turn toward upcoming releases by top cloud cost optimization tools to help SMEs make the most of their investments in cloud resources. This blog post will delve into the key challenges that SMEs in the US usually face while trying to optimize their cloud cost spending.

**Challenges Involved in Cloud Cost Optimization**

Cloud cost optimization is not a trend but has become a necessary element that plays a critical role in streamlining the business processes of SMEs. However, there are specific roadblocks that need to be addressed to enable SMEs to make the most of their cloud resource utilization.

So, let’s take a deep dive into the critical challenges for SMEs in attaining cloud cost optimization for their businesses.

**Old Mindset Approach:** Many companies continue to treat the cloud as they did their old on-premises setups, resulting in over-provisioning of resources. However, they still need to be ready to change their perspective. They were paying more than what they were actually using the resources for. Over time, it is essential to adapt new approaches and perspectives process in order to embrace growth and innovation.

**Lack of Accuracy in Determining Size of Cloud Resources:** One common issue is the failure of companies to accurately determine the size of cloud resources, resulting in wasted resources and an inability to assess the extent of the waste. The organization should leverage [cloud optimization tools](https://www.trigent.com/services/cloud-services/) to identify the accurate size of their current cloud resources.

**Miscommunication in the Internal Teams:** Miscommunication on the internal teams can lead to duplication of work as well as inefficiencies in having adequate cloud administration and maintenance. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to ensure that there is an efficient flow of information among the IT specialists and that decision-making is done by taking all the teams in confidence to proceed with a dedicated mindset.

**Inadequate Data Cleanups:**  If businesses need the judicious usage of their resources, they need to ensure regular cleanups are performed. Most of the time, a few unnecessary processes are operating in the background, some instances continue to operate even after their assigned work has been finished, etc., all of which contribute to increased power consumption and costs. 
Regular cleanups are obligatory for those businesses that intend to make the most of their cloud resources.

**Absence of DevOps Culture:** The culture of DevOps is often nonexistent in cloud computing environments, which is one of the numerous problems with these environments. Implementing a DevOps culture is beneficial for several reasons, including effective deployment methods, automated provisioning processes, and data recovery procedures, to name just a few. It helps to reduce the amount of manual interaction, which in turn helps to enhance efficiency and save costs.

**Conclusion**

To conclude, times are changing, and Small and medium enterprises need to bring a positive change in their approach towards the adoption of cloud. Their old mindset and perspective can’t bring the required changes, and therefore, SMEs need to bring transformational change in using and optimizing their cloud resource utilization. Each business’s cloud requirements can differ based on its market segment, customer needs, and goals. There is a need to have an alignment between business goals and the usage of cloud resources to achieve the desired outcomes. With the help of an IT partner, SMEs across industries can not only bring a shift in using cloud resources but also optimize their usage of resources, gaining cost and operational efficiencies. Therefore, by relying on managed cloud services of an IT partner, SMEs can leverage their cloud resources and move ahead towards innovation and staying ahead of time.