8 Tips That Can Help DevOps Engineers Optimize Cloud Cost
An agile software development lifecycle is essential to get a competitive advantage in the rapidly changing technology landscape. DevOps has thus become a necessary strategy for organizations across the globe.
What is DevOps?
DevOps combines two words Software Development (Dev) and IT Operations (Ops). It empowers organizations to deliver apps and services at high velocity, which is the need of the hour.
Who is a DevOps developer?
DevOps developer is a professional who facilitates the entire software development process, ensuring fast pace, high performance, and improved coordination between software and IT teams. He often uses agile methodologies to resolve conflicting demands or issues that might occur during the development process.
Cloud waste is a matter of concern
Covid-19 has taught businesses to control their expenditures even while the sun is shining. Therefore, cost-cutting has become a norm across many giant organizations.
Most businesses are running on the internet these days, and for data storage, companies heavily rely upon cloud computing. Thus, the expenditure on internet connectivity and cloud storage has increased astronomically. As a result, organizations have to allocate a separate budget for cloud usage.
However, not every penny they spend after this delivers productive results. Waste of cloud space and internet connectivity used for unproductive work is a common concern for organizations worldwide.
What can a DevOps developer do to reduce this cost?
Cloud adoption is increasing on a meteoric scale. Therefore, it has become mandatory for organizations to imbibe practices that may help them optimize cloud usage costs. However, technology has yet not made it possible to predict or forecast cloud expenditure accurately. Here is when the expertise of a DevOps engineer is called for.
DevOps engineers can help reduce cloud costs with effective DevOps methodologies. Today, we share six practical tips to help DevOps engineers solve the cloud waste problem.
Understanding the problem is crucial
Organizations spend a bounty on cloud resources. If they are unused or underused, organizations may suffer huge losses. If the pattern recurs, organizations would instead divert their funds toward operations that provide more value.
However, this might put them in a fix when a sudden requirement for cloud infrastructure arises. Therefore, technical and corporate decision-makers are often befuddled about controlling the cloud cost.
DevOps engineers can help organizations determine how much cloud infrastructure they require and when they should plan to scale up with their deep insights and sound knowledge of both the technology and operations.
DevOps services can help reduce cloud wastage by-
- Eliminating silos
- Providing quick feedback
- Automating processes
- Holistic thinking
- Price comparison
- Resource usage evaluation
- Restrict computing power:
- Setting alerts
- Eliminating silos
Two primary silos can hinder the development process:
- Communication silos
- Access silos
DevOps principles help organizations deal with cloud cost management by preventing unrequired computing. Organizations can appoint admins to determine when computing should be allowed or not. This way, it can restrict the computing activity without impacting its productivity.
2. Holistic thinking
DevOps engineers should have two primary goals: resolve problems as quickly as possible and reduce the cost of the process. The engineer thus has to consider the IT environment of the software development company USA, and individual experiences combinedly. Furthermore, it requires the engineer to think unconventionally and come up with practical solutions.
3. Quick feedback
When we have a water leakage at home, we find the source of origin before fixing it to prevent future leakage. The same strategy applies when you are trying to curb cloud waste. DevOps engineers should scrutinize the sources and reasons for cloud waste.
After understanding the gist of the problem, he can quickly come up with feedback and recommend appropriate technology tools to stop the leakage.
4. Automated processes
In custom software development, IT teams may employ unnecessary tools. Apart from coding, DevOps engineers can automate the development processes to save time and effort.
This will help them prevent unnecessary cloud usage. However, DevOps engineers can also recommend to companies what would be the best cloud services for them.
They can compare prices with other service providers, evaluate resource usage, optimize cloud computing, set alerts if the usage exceeds the set budget, and apply DevOps methodologies to optimize cloud infrastructure cost. Let us briefly glance at how the engineer can do it.
5. Price comparison
The developer can evaluate the upfront cost of cloud services. Then he can compare it with other cloud environments and recommend a cloud migration if it saves a significant cost.
Comparing prices with other service providers always help companies make prudent and cost-effective choices.
6. Evaluate resource usage
Do you know, that even if you do not use cloud services, you have to pay the service provider a fixed sum every month? DevOps engineers’ expertise lies in evaluating the resources as and when they are required or should be eliminated from the cloud and determining cloud usage accordingly. This will help reduce unnecessary expenditure after cloud infrastructure.
7. Restrict computing power
One way of controlling cloud usage is to restrict computing power in CPUs and RAM. Different groups within the organization can be given different power as per their roles and responsibilities and types of resources.
8. Set alerts
It is always wise to determine the upper ceiling for any expenditure. DevOps engineers can allocate monthly cloud usage budgets to teams as per their requirements and set up a system that generates alerts if the upper limit for cloud usage is crossed. The engineer and the team can then review the use and discuss measures like extending the usage limit or leakage prevention.
DevOps cost management tools can help the engineer with stringent cost monitoring. The main role of a DevOps developer is to fill the gaps and facilitate a smooth project development lifecycle. DevOps engineers can contribute more value to the company by helping them minimize expenditure after cloud services.
