Firstly, serverless doesn’t really mean serverless, servers are still used, it just means that you as a company don’t need to worry about the cloud server-side of computing, memory, CPU etc.
It is a pay-as-you-go model that allows a service to only use the CPU and memory when it’s needed and it’s on-demand 24/7 whenever you need it.
From a finance perspective there are a number of advantages:
There are a few things to understand about serverless that complicates an implementation.
Firstly there is vendor lock-in. Once you start down the serverless route you need to choose a vendor and stick with it. The code isn’t easily transferable.
These are the different flavours of serverless:
The next consideration is that you can’t just start using serverless, you need to have a serverless element to your cloud strategy where new software development projects build with serverless in mind.
Serverless isn’t for everyone. When a request is made to do some “computing work” it takes a second or so to start up. This is fine for most applications but applications that require very low latency, serverless is not suitable.
Finally, skills are expensive in this domain right now and very sought after, so it’s likely you will need to invest in training and maybe consultants to get your development team up to speed.
Kumoco Cloud Manager, ServiceNow Edition can help you make savings up to 40% on your current cloud configuration costs and even a serverless configuration can be mis-managed. With fully automated recommendations your cloud and your cloud costs can be under control at the click of a button.
Kumoco are cloud management experts providing ServiceNow customers with the world’s most comprehensive cloud management solution, powered by and built on the ServiceNow platform.
Do you know companies that buy Amazon AWS, Google GCP and Azure for 90% less than you do?
You may have heard of spot markets in the finance world, but do you know that similar markets are available in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud?
These cloud markets allow anyone to purchase exactly that same cloud capability at c.88%-92% less than list price. If you have ever bought a ticket on TicketMaster, you have used services running on the spot market.
Well like any data centre, there always needs to be enough spare unused capacity to allow for growth. For example, if a very large enterprise or government department decides to migrate 10,000 servers to the cloud, Amazon AWS, etc needs to be ready.
This means that at any one time there is c.20% capacity unused.
To ensure that this capacity can at least pay for some of the cost to maintain it, the spot markets were created.
AWS have EC2 Spot Instances
Azure have Spot VMs
Google have Spot VMs
It all boils down to what is mentioned above, at some point the capacity will be needed for new customers and if it’s being used by you, AWS, Azure etc will want it back.
This is where the Kumoco magic comes into play, Kumoco has a cloud management platform that automatically detects that AWS has requested the service back and automatically buys new space at the current discounted spot price. The Virtual Machine (cloud server) is then automatically relocated for you. You will never know it’s happened. Other than that, you continue to pay “cents on the dollar” for your services.
So that’s the spot markets in the cloud and pretty much everyone can use it.
And… even if your organization decides that the spot markets are not suitable for your business, Kumoco Cloud Manager, ServiceNow Edition can help you make savings upto 40% on your cloud costs with fully automated recommendations that can be implemented at the click of a button.
Kumoco are cloud management experts providing ServiceNow customers with the world’s most comprehensive cloud management solution, powered by and built on the ServiceNow platform.
In its simplest form, FinOps is about making sure you are aware of who is spending IT money in your organization and is that money is being spent wisely? It’s the financial management of your IT estate including the cloud.
When granted that visibility, it gives you the information to create responsibility within your organization, define simple processes and ensure that on an ongoing basis, they are being followed.
As The FinOps Foundation puts it, “[FinOps] is the practice of bringing financial accountability to the variable spend model of the cloud, enabling distributed teams to make business trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality.”
Kumoco has witnessed customers save an average of 35 percent on cloud spending once they have FinOps visibility. For Enterprises spending $5M+ a year, savings are significant.
In the majority of cases, your organization will be paying for things it doesn’t need, such as the following:
Very quickly, the cost savings originally promised by moving to the cloud become eroded and the business case becomes fragile.
The companies that have a clear strategy and approach to using the cloud are the ones that will truly realize the benefits of cloud computing.
There are many products and services on the market that offer their solution to FinOps.
Having a cloud strategy provides good direction, however, implementation is not always that easy.
Nevertheless, at the root of the strategy will always be a solid fully featured cloud management solution. This system:
Once you are comfortable that the cloud is under control, the money you save can be redirected to innovation and product development or just to reduce costs.
Kumoco is a cloud management expert providing ServiceNow customers with the world’s most comprehensive cloud management solution, powered by and built on the ServiceNow platform.
Terry Benge, COO of Kumoco, has been working in the managed service and cloud space for 20+ years all the way back to when it was known as grid computing. Yes, cloud computing has been around that long!
As a result of the digital shifts in recent years, SMEs across the globe have been accelerating their adoption of the cloud. 81% of tech companies have at least one application currently hosted on the cloud. Beyond that, cloud spend is also increasing rapidly, as more businesses fully embrace cloud solutions. Cloud spend grew in 2021 by 21.7%, making up an ever-increasing percentage of IT spending. In this post, the reasons why any small to medium-sized business should consider using a cloud management platform will be reviewed.
As the cloud estates of small and medium-sized companies continue to increase, continuously managing and optimizing them can become burdensome. This is especially true for organizations that lack the resources to hire a dedicated cloud engineer. On average, an organization can reduce their cloud spend by up to 40% through the use of a cloud management platform. But it goes beyond that, here are a few reasons SME’s should consider implementing a cloud management platform:
As the complexity of applications for technology companies continues to grow through the addition of new features, such as artificial intelligence—so does the range of cloud services they require. Leading companies, such as Salesforce, are implementing powerful new features in partnership with AWS, like automatic call transcription for its call centers and Alexa for Business. As smaller companies start to compete with such extensive feature sets, they are required to manage a complex collection of services across providers and geographies.
The average cloud engineer in the US makes $118,000 per year. For an average small to medium-sized organization, this cost can be prohibitive. CTOs and other IT leads are often required to manage an organization’s cloud estate themselves. This can quickly become a cumbersome process if done manually and usually requires extensive research to conduct properly.
Cloud management platforms provide an easy and cost-effective way for SME managers to manage their cloud instead, without the need of a cloud engineer. With a management system, SME’s have a complete overview of their cloud services, as well as AI-powered cost and compliance recommendations that can be implemented at the touch of a button.
External organizations typically take 90 days to perform a full cloud audit. The same insights on platforms, such as Kumoco Cloud Manager SME, are available immediately. Instead of searching for a cloud spend consultant that you can trust, many of the same recommendations will be available immediately, ready for you to implement. Leading platforms not only assist with overall cloud spend, but offer additional benefits, such as timely notifications, forecasting abilities, and compliance management.
As organizations serve multiple geographic markets, cloud compliance becomes a concern. More governments are requiring that firms store specific data within certain geographies to protect the privacy of their citizens. This is especially true for financial organizations. Leading cloud managers are able to detect these compliance issues and propose changes to ensure alignment with relevant standards.
For more information and further reading, the Google compliance resource center provides details on the topic relating to specific countries and jurisdictions.
As cloud spending continues to consume more of the IT budget, so does the importance of managing these costs effectively. In 2021, cloud costs were estimated to make up 32% of IT budgets at organizations. Beyond this, these costs are even higher for high growth software-focused organizations. Managing this spending effectively can have a massive impact on profits. Cloud management platforms enable significant cost savings on the critical services that SMEs rely on, from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, all at the press of a button.
While managing an ever-growing cloud estate can be a challenge for business leaders, using the right cloud management platform can enable significant cost savings. By constantly monitoring and providing opportunities to reduce costs and ensure compliance, Kumoco Cloud Manager SME allows small to medium-sized organizations to use the same AI-powered platform that enterprise businesses rely on. Get back to the important tasks by eliminating manual audits. Start using a cloud management platform today.
As more businesses migrate to the cloud, relying on AWS for their server infrastructure — understanding detailed billing reports can be a challenge. In 2020, 79% of technical professionals stated that managing cloud spend is a challenge at their organisation.
In this post, the topic of how to read your AWS bill to understand where costs are arising from will be explored.
Why You Should Regularly Check Your AWS Billing Report
As firms scale the number of customers that they serve, cloud expenses often continue to grow. In the software industry, as an example, cloud costs typically make up 50% of the cost of revenue. In addition to this, organizations typically exceed their committed cloud spend forecast by 20%. Allowing these costs to go unchecked can have a massive impact on financial performance come year-end.
Ensuring that you take the time regularly to review your AWS billing report — in detail — can prevent such overruns.
How To Access Your AWS Billing Report
Before you can read and analyze your AWS billing report, you first need to access it. It is available through the AWS Management Console under the Billing and Cost Management section. This guide from the AWS documentation is helpful in case you have any difficulty navigating to the correct location.
Under the bills page, you will be able to see exact details broken down by service, server location, and usage type. The level of granularity should be that pictured in the image below.
What Information is Included on a Detailed Billing Report in AWS
To properly understand billing in AWS, it is important to understand the different cost driver categories. Amazon will bill you per hour when using compute services such as EC2, and per GB for storage services such as S3. These are outlined below.
AWS Service
AWS provides organizations with a wide range of available services. From the storage of files through the S3 service, to enabling blockchain applications with Amazon Managed Blockchain.. To understand your bill, you need to be clear on what these services mean for your organization. Some of the most used services include:
Your bill will detail the exact service that is being used and the amount of usage for that particular service, as well as the exact cost (minus any discounts).
AWS Locations
Beyond services, your cloud configuration may also be utilizing multiple locations. Your bill will detail budgetary spending broken down by server location.
Pricing in AWS varies between Regions and Availability Zones. Locations in North America and India tend to have the lowest costs, while locations in South America and Australia tend to be the most expensive. The difference between North Virginia and Sao Paulo, for example, is over 50%. By taking this into account when planning your AWS services, you can achieve significant cost savings.
Cloud managers, such as Kumoco Cloud Manager, can automatically rebalance your services to low-cost regions.
Usage Terms and Compute Savings Plan
AWS offers discounts for companies that can commit to longer-term usage. For machine learning and compute services, such as EC2, AWS offers discounts when you commit to one or three-year terms. If your cloud needs are relatively fixed, you can explore one of these pricing options to reduce your overall spending.
Depending on your exact commitment, any relevant discounts will also be listed in your AWS bill.
Making Use of The Information
Once you understand what you are being charged for by AWS, you can begin to take steps to fully understand what your organization is making use of and where savings can be achieved.
This can often be a complex process. Cloud Managers, such as Kumoco Cloud Manager, can save you significant amounts of both time and budget by automatically suggesting opportunities to save.