When you don’t keep track of your spending, little expenses can total up into big expenses that have a long-term impact on your finances. This is as true for cloud spending as it is for your coffee habit. Keep your cloud costs under control by looking out for wasted spending like the following:

1. Over-provisioned resources.

When your IT is in your data center, it can take a long time to obtain additional resources, so it makes sense to buy more than you need. Having spare capacity lying around lets you shortcut the purchasing and provisioning process so you can use the resources as soon as you need them. When you use cloud computing, resources are always available on demand, so there’s no need to pay for idle spare resources.

2. Unused systems left active.

With cloud, you pay for the resources you use. Instances that are up and idle costs money. Be sure to shutdown unused resources. You’ll want to permanently shut down development and test servers for projects that are complete, and automate a nightly shut down of instances that are only needed during business hours.

3. Losing track of free trials.

Many cloud capabilities are available on a free trial basis. When the trial ends, the resources are no longer free. Keep track of any free trials and make sure you terminate usage if you won’t be using them long term.

4. Moving data around.

Cloud providers are eager to help you move data into the cloud; not so much for moving data out of the cloud. You’ll generally pay fees to move data around, so don’t just drop data wherever is convenient at the time. Build a data architecture that places data where it’s needed most and come up with a cost-effective strategy for moving it when it’s needed elsewhere. This doesn’t just matter when you’re building a hybrid or multi-cloud architecture; it impacts your backup and disaster recovery planning, too.

5. Unnecessary rearchitecting.

Sometimes the effort of rewriting applications for the cloud is worthwhile, but other times it’s just wasted effort that doesn’t result in better performance or any other benefit. Take the time to carefully evaluate when it makes sense to lift-and-shift and when it’s worth it to rewrite applications to take advantage of cloud capabilities.

Proper cloud management can help you address many of these issues. Automation can ensure that instances are shutdown overnight, and cloud monitoring can help you track utilization of resources to identify opportunities for consolidation.

Prescient Management provides IT consulting and managed services to businesses in Chicago and Schaumburg. Contact us to learn how we can help you implement cloud infrastructure and keep your cloud costs under control.