Cloud

5 Questions To Ask To Manage Cloud Spending in Higher Ed

Cloud costs can get out of control for institutions that aren’t careful. Here’s what to ask to keep yours in check.

Joel Snyder, Ph.D., is a senior IT consultant with 30 years of practice. An internationally recognized expert in the areas of security, messaging and networks, Dr. Snyder is a popular speaker and author and is known for his unbiased and comprehensive tests of security and networking products. His clients include major organizations on six continents.

Shifting applications to the cloud has been a decade-long success story. Now that the initial chaos and learning curve are in the rearview mirror, higher ed IT managers and administrators are looking at the bill and asking, “Am I paying too much?” Here’s what to find out. [end web only]

1. Where Is Our Money Going?

Start by looking at cloud cost breakdowns for the past few quarters by application, service and project. Do the big dollars first: Identify the top spenders and focus there. Is the value received worth the costs?

2. Are We Forecasting Properly?

Cloud isn’t new. By now, you should have accurate predictions of costs with minimal surprises. Compare your budget with your cloud spending and see where the numbers don’t match up. Any variance of more than 10% in either direction is something that should be explored: “Why aren’t we doing a better job at predicting costs?”

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3. Are We Keeping an Eye On Waste?

Are your workloads rightsized? Look at metrics such as CPU and memory utilization, which should be at around 75%. Does your team have a plan to identify unused and underused resources and respond with shutdowns or reprovisioning? Are you getting — and acting on — real-time alerts for unforeseen spikes that could indicate an out-of-control application?

DISCOVER: A connected campus depends on a strong network.

4. Are We Taking Advantage of Cloud Cost Offers?

Cloud vendors know you want to save money, and they have a lot of pricing plans. But you must take advantage of the offers to get the savings. Usually, you’re exchanging a promise to buy resources for a lower per-unit price. Now that you’ve got years of cloud experience, check that you’re paying the lowest possible price, especially for predictable workloads. At least a third of your cloud spending should be discounted due to commitment-based pricing.

5. Are We Using the Right Storage Tiers?

Storage seems to grow and never shrink, but that doesn’t mean all data should be stored in the same way. Look at your storage usage, costs per gigabyte and access patterns to identify storage that could shift from hot to cold to archive tiers. Do you have a lifecycle policy and, even more important, automation in place to shift data to lower-cost tiers?

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