Cost reduction is one of the top reasons
organizations want to leverage public cloud, but
without implementing fundamental cost
optimization best practices, you may not see your
target savings.
Depending on which sources you read, you may have expected your cloud program to
generate IT cost reductions of 40% to 50% and then been disappointed with the actual
savings 1 . According to Gartner, organizations report saving an average of 16% by mov-
ing to public cloud, but higher cost reductions are often possible 2 . However, greater sav-
ings requires adherence to cost optimization best practices. In a perfect world, cost gov-
ernance and optimization strategies would be implemented along with the expansion of
your cloud program, but all too often the necessary behavior and policy changes fail to
keep pace with technology adoption. The result can be the unpleasant surprise of
increased cloud bills long after you expected cost savings.
The public cloud represents an opportunity for fast and near infinite infrastructure scal-
ability. Therefore, without the correct guardrails, public cloud spend can easily spiral out
of control. In some reported cases, cost overruns were bad enough to prompt the repa-
triation of 10% of the already migrated workloads away from public cloud 3 . Fortunately,
there is an arsenal of options at your disposal to get your cloud spend in check. These
range from adjusting the services you consume and implementing new financial con-
trols, to adapting your application architectures to take advantage of cloud
capabilities.
I DC - Fostering Business and Organizational Transformation to Generate
Business Value with Amazon Web Services, 2018, CTP Research 2010-2019
2
Gartner - Is the Public Cloud Cheaper than My Datacenter?, 2018
3
451 Research - The Trouble with Cloud “Repatriation,” 2018
1
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