Cloud hosting can be expensive, especially if you aren’t well-versed in what options you have available for optimisation. With cloud service providers and their available resources changing all the time, keeping up with what’s best for your running costs can be tricky.

Today at CodeFirst we have gathered together some tips that you can use to reassess your current cloud hosting configuration and hopefully drive down those costs. Go through this list to see if you have ticked all the boxes for maximum ROI in your cloud spend.

1. Use the monitoring tools available from your cloud service provider

Each cloud service provider will have a set of tools that allow you to oversee resource usage, plus some even suggest ways in which you can save money. For instance, Amazon has a full suite of products to help organisations manage their costs better with AWS. This includes AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets.

By learning to master the tools available to you under your given cloud provider, you’ll have a better understanding of resource management to reduce costs.

2. Look into different instance size options

Are you using the right instance sizes for your purpose? For example, are you running instances with more CPUs or RAM than is really necessary? When you look at loads over time, you will be able to determine whether you are making good use of your resources or have more power than is necessary.

Containerisation of applications can be a good way to split workloads over smaller sized instances, rather than having what’s termed a monolithic application.

3. Look into different instance type options

Similarly, are your instances types optimised for the wrong parameters? Instance types are generally optimised for a certain attribute, such as memory, compute, or storage.

When setting up initial hosting, you may have chosen (or been given) general purpose instances when you’d be better off using optimised instances. Similarly, if your application has changed over time, it may need to be optimised for a different factor.

4. Investigate fixed vs. scaling vs. spot instances

Have you investigated different instance running types? While fixed (aka reserved) instances can offer better value over scaled instance types, depending on usage, spot instances are also a class of instance you may not have considered. Spot instances are useful for short term resource allocation at a fraction of the price you’d pay for reserved or scaled instances.

5. Cost out other providers

Have all your hosting on Azure since you’re a Windows team and it was the default move? Perhaps you went with Amazon back when they had all the best services at the time? The cloud computing landscape is certainly heating up which means the competition is becoming more cost-oriented rather than simply service-oriented. Taking a look at competitors, such as Google Cloud Platform, could be worth your time investment.

6. Consider shifting resources back in house

Why did you head to the cloud in the first place for hosting? Was it simply because you thought cloud was the future? You may be better off shifting resources back in house or to a managed data centre in a nearby locality. Simply because large cloud providers exist doesn’t mean that their services will be a match for your needs. Perform a cost-benefit analysis of your range of options.

7. Seek outside assistance with a consultancy

If you don’t have the in house knowledge to be able to perform analysis of your cloud computing resources, then it’s time to seek outside help. A managed cloud hosting service provider will be able to go over your current setup and make recommendations for your organisation for optimal usage and best costs.

8. Evaluate application performance

The final issue that we will touch on here is something that many organisations may not even consider in their cloud hosting cost analysis. It could be, perhaps, that your application/s have been built bloated, full of unnecessary operations, memory allocation, etc. If this is the case then your code will need to be refactored for maximum efficiency.

We would be more than happy to take a look over your code and see whether it’s running efficiently or full of bloat. At CodeFirst, we can spot the difference between an optimised application and an oversized application, all by checking out your codebase. If you choose, we can refactor the application for you to save on your running costs. We can also help in evaluating your cloud resource allocation to see where cost savings can be made. Contact us to learn more about how we can help.