Can SMEs(Small-Medium Enterprises) Benefit From Cloud Cost Management Tools?

The introduction of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) opened the cloud computing world to enterprises of all sizes with the provision of scalability coupled with a pay-per-use model. However, lots of IaaS customers or users are not optimally leveraging the cost benefits of thes ervice model.

Since Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) now have access to cloud computing through IaaS just like Large Enterprises, other related services such as cloud cost management tools are therefore also available to SMEs for the optimization of theircloud operations.

Combining cloud cost management tools with an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) software helps enterprises to have better control of their cloud services-related expenditures, havingresource usage/demand insights and predictive analyticsto drive cost reduction.

An Ideal cloud cost management tools such as the Cloudplexo platform provides SMEs with unlimited opportunities to cut-down their cloud operational cost by leveraging the following features which are offered on the platform:

Resource Usage Monitoring

Adopting a cloud cost management tool enables enterprises to have a clearer insight of their service consumption and presents the corresponding financial impact on a real-time basis. Predictive analytics are also provided by making optimal use of the data gathered during resource usage monitoring, which further gives the tool users the ability to closely and quickly make knowledge-driven decisions.

Operations Scheduling

Why do you have to pay for cloud services that are running at periods when they are not needed? This is like paying for completely idle job hours

Witha cloud cost management tool, users can configure operational schedules to start and stop depending on work loads and work hours. This can also apply to projects and deployments where their environments are required to run onlyfor specific periods.

Rightsizing recommendation

The aim of providing rightsizing recommendations is to help users to promptly identify optimization opportunities and resource under utilization. Achieving maximum performance at the lowest possible costs is the goal of rightsizing cloud resources. While it is difficult to manually attain maximum balance between workloads and allocated resources, an ideal cloud cost management tool can automatically provide such recommendations more accurately and promptly.

User-Friendly Data Representation

It is not enough to generate resource usage data, as a visually appealing and easy-to-use presentation will communicate more meaning to the users. Just as it’s seen on the Cloudplexo platform dashboard, a user-friendly interface/experience will enable efficiency and remove the complexity in managing cloud operation expenditures.

Multi-Cloud Support

The ability to have a cost management tool that supports integration with different clouds is an additional advantage, improving flexibility and optimizing cost to the most efficient level across varying scales or sizes of cloud operations.

In conclusion, cloud cost optimization is best achieved with the right tools in place. More interestingly is the fact that these tools are not limited to just hyper or large scale cloud users but also available to SMEs, thus enabling a high levelof scalability and flexibility.