The Hidden Costs You See When Using Cloud Platforms

Cloud computing is a tremendous tool for modern businesses. It provides users with anytime-anywhere access to the applications, storage, and processing they need to keep business running efficiently and productively. It is billed as-a-service, meaning that it also comes with the flexibility and scalability most businesses need to control their computing costs. Unfortunately, it’s not always that cut and dry. Today, we are going to look at the hidden costs that businesses might see if they select to use cloud resources. 

Research In Action surveyed 468 CIOs about their company’s cloud usage and the costs they understand. A majority said that their company’s cloud computing investments were some of the largest technology expenses on their company’s budget. Fewer CIOs consider the hidden costs of the technology, as most of them trust their vendors to make the determinations needed to keep their business’ cloud platforms viable and available. Many of them admitted to monitoring the fluctuations in cost, but feel as though the technology provides the best value possible. 

Some were more candid and are looking at the following cost-related issues:

• Having to put forth more effort to properly manage vendors, and their corresponding Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
• Bottlenecking and the impact poor cloud performance could have on brand perception, productivity, and customer support.
• The increased cost of solving complex problems inside cloud environments.

These concerns are completely justified and are often difficult to quantify. Cloud inefficiencies now include ways to use AI and automation to track and manage their cloud performance; making it harder to hide the costs that just a couple of years ago were really hindering business’ cloud adoption. 

Scaling Costs

Many businesses that depend on cloud computing run into cost overruns when dealing with the scale of their solution. You really need to find a sweet spot because over-provisioning (buying too much), under-provisioning (not buying enough), and inherent costs with management and administration of shared cloud resources can really add up. You may not think much of it when signing up, but understanding how each solution affects your available capital resources outside of the per-month or per-GB cost will allow you to put a kibosh on cost overruns due to usage. 

Taking It Too Far

Using cloud computing can undeniably help your business, but when you are paying too much for all of your solutions, it’s hard to be profitable. All you need to do is take a look at your personal cloud usage. Subscriptions seem cheap, but when they are added together you are talking about a lot of money on some things that aren’t necessary. Each month you may pay for Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, Hulu and be doing okay, but if that extends to Amazon Prime, Showtime Anytime, HBO Max, ESPN, NBC Sports, and more, you are probably wasting some money. Subscription models are everywhere, you could literally pay hundreds of dollars a month and use very little of what you pay for. That’s capital that could be better spent elsewhere. 

The knowledgeable technicians at k_Street Consulting, LLC can help you come up with a cloud deployment strategy that takes into account need, while helping you avoid cost overruns typically associated with these assets. Call us today at (202) 640-2737 to learn more.