Cloud cost optimization is the process of eliminating waste, right-sizing services, identifying unused or mismanaged resources, and finding cloud saving opportunities.
While there are already cloud cost optimization capabilities built into the three major cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud), often times they miss the mark on actual cloud savings. This is where third-party cloud cost optimization tools for the public cloud come in.
Some of the big players in cloud management include Flexera, VMWare, CloudBolt, and Scalr, as listed on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Management Platforms for 2020. However, not all organizations and businesses, specifically small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), fit under the business and pricing models of these cloud management providers.
This blog post will explore and highlight some of the newer players to enter the cloud management and cloud cost optimization space.
1. CloudZero
CloudZero is ideal for engineering teams and developers to quickly organize cloud costs so that they can make cost decisions while building products. Using machine learning techniques, CloudZero automatically organizes and maps costs to the specific products and features; then, data related to cost anomalies and other components is delivered to the relevant teams.
By informing users on which cost anomalies need addressing, development teams can instantly monitor and understand cloud costs more thoroughly and resolve any issues before they move on to the next phase of development. This visibility prevents them from being hit with unexpected cloud costs in the long run.
2. Opsani
Like CloudZero, Opsani was built with DevOps and engineering teams in mind. Opsani prides itself on continuous cloud optimization that tackles a pain point shared by many businesses: adjusting runtime environments.
For example, changing the CPU or memory allocations for a specific runtime environment so that it operates at optimal performance levels ultimately saves cloud spending. Opsani uses AI (machine learning algorithms) to continuously optimize cloud apps and their infrastructure by automatically tuning runtime configurations so that applications are executed as efficiently as possible.
The service also includes virtual machine instance sizing and middleware configuration. Opsani’s goal is to churn out efficient solutions and automatically apply them to ensure cloud applications deliver the lowest costs possible while delivering the performance that customers demand.
3. TotalCloud
TotalCloud is a cloud management and automation platform designed to accelerate workflows so that users can save on cloud costs. It works primarily to help cloud engineers custom-build their own cloud management platform without having to write a single line of code.
Using TotalCloud’s “smart” workflows that only need to be set up once, users can drag, drop, execute, and communicate daily cloud management tasks – effectively automating these cloud tasks. This feature ultimately cuts down on the opportunity cost of DevOps’ time.
Other features include resource scheduling, which automatically shuts down resources based on idleness; resource cleanup that removes unnecessary data that drives up cloud costs; and rightsizing, which prevents users from overpaying for unused resources.
4. Grumatic
Grumatic is the ideal cloud cost optimization and automation tool for businesses that require a comprehensive cost analysis of their cloud structure without all the technical jargon. The dashboard breaks down cloud costs by analyzing cloud usage patterns collected from usage data from Amazon’s native tools such as CUR and CloudWatch as well as from third party tools such as Datadog and New Relic.
Using AI to continuously monitor usage data every hour, Grumatic provides alerts on any cloud spending anomalies. There is also an automation feature that takes repetitive actions off users’ hands to save time and money.
Grumatic provides access to 80+ cloud cost optimization best practices that can be applied to cloud use strategies instantly so that users can start saving on cloud costs. As a tool focused solely on cloud cost savings, Grumatic guarantees at least 10% savings on monthly cloud bills. In a recent case study, this cloud cost cloud optimization helped several companies save more than 65% on their AWS bills.
5. CloudZatic
Through their cloud management platform, Cloudzatic addresses multiple cloud challenges for businesses looking to optimize cloud performance and costs. They operate as a SaaS tool designed specifically for AWS and offer cost analysis, cost optimization, and cost tracing features. Pricing is based on the number of virtual machines, number of cloud accounts, and users.
All customers enjoy the same features including cost consumption insights across cloud resources, default proactive policies to mitigate security risks for compliance, best practice recommendations for workloads, and other cost savings opportunities, such as allowing users to hibernate unused instances and providing estimated savings for each instance.
6. Unravel Cloud
Unravel Cloud provides a one-stop-solution for cloud management needs as it relates to: discovering the optimal cloud strategy, implementing or migrating to the cloud, and optimizing and governing the cloud as needed.
Through its platform, UnravelCloud lets users assess, troubleshoot, and analyze the performance of a business’s cloud infrastructure and uses AI for forecasting. From cloud services to applications, Unravel Cloud takes into account all performance metrics across every layer of the cloud. Users can get visibility across the multi-cloud infrastructure, down to each asset level, to get cost and usage reports for future cost planning and optimization.
7. Cloudtamer
Cloudtamer is a proactive multi-cloud governance solution that provides multi-cloud visibility, prevents cost overruns, and automates compliance for businesses. Through their platform, users have, in one central location, access to all of their cloud users and cloud governance activities.
From here, users can view, use, and manage cloud resources with context-based spending data across accounts and cloud providers. Its budget enforcement feature lets users enforce their budget with actions to alert, modify, and terminate cloud spending when a certain threshold is reached.
Recently, Cloudtamer introduced a new feature to provide savings opportunities. It scans users’ cloud environment regularly and based on over-provisioned or abandoned cloud resources, it suggests cost-saving changes.
Conclusion
Cloud management and cloud cost optimization tools are vital for businesses looking to save on cloud spending. Many of these tools offer rightsizing and decommissioning features that adjust a resource’s size or terminate a resource that is no longer in use. While it’s a great start, users may have to ask for more from cloud cost optimization tools.
AI is notably being applied to cloud cost optimization, and many of these tools are using it in different ways to deliver lower cloud costs. (Learn more[Ka1] about the different use cases of AI for cloud cost optimization).
