It’s fascinating how quickly companies perceptions have evolved over the last few years when it comes to cloud computing. Just thinking back to conversations that we had with customers about moving their server infrastructure to the public cloud, the typical responses went something like this:
2016 – “We are never moving to the cloud!”
2018 – “I don’t see us moving to the cloud anytime soon, but management would like us to do our due diligence to see if it makes sense.”
2019 – “We know we are moving to the cloud and are creating a 2-3 year plan to get there.”
2020 – “We need to be in the cloud immediately!”
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how the flexibility and elasticity of moving to the public cloud can be a huge benefit to businesses. It is no longer a matter of IF, it’s a matter of WHEN and how SOON. Here are a few cost savings tips that companies should be considering as they are building their cloud strategy:
1. Right-size before you migrate – Cloud computing is a completely different mindset than on-premises server infrastructure. When analyzing the compute, memory and storage of on-premises servers, we find that most servers are only 30-40% utilized. One of the biggest advantages of moving to the cloud is that you only need to pay for what you are using. It’s imperative that companies understand their true compute, memory and storage needs so they do not over provision and waste money. There are a number of assessment programs that help customers understand their true usage needs prior to migration. These assessments are typically low cost or in some cases, can even be funded by the Public Cloud service provider. Most assessments run between 30-60 days and we highly recommend taking the time to go through one, as they can lead to 40-60% savings prior to migration.
2. Have a licensing strategy – Software licensing costs and compliance are often overlooked when moving to the public cloud. Here are a few reasons why licensing should not be ignored:
- Microsoft has made changes to their licensing rules which could cause license compliance issues with existing or new cloud workloads if you are using volume licensing
- While it is easy to check the BYOL (Bring your own License) box when spinning up a new cloud workload, more times than not, there is no real validation done to see if you truly have a license available for use. Long term use of these bad habits can lead to significant license compliance issues
- Creating a cloud environment based on compute, memory and storage only, while ignoring the software licensing impact can send your software licensing costs through the roof. For example, if you were to take an on-premises SQL environment that was isolated to a dedicated VMware cluster on-premises and move it to individual on demand cloud VMs without taking the host level licensing in consideration, your SQL costs could increase exponentially
- Don’t remain on volume licensing just because that is “always the way you have done it.” Many customers fall into this trap. While volume licensing discounts look great on a server to server basis, that really is not an apples to apples comparison. We find that most companies using volume licensing agreements are paying software assurance on about 30% of their licensing that they are not even using. The advantage of moving to the cloud is to only pay for what you are using. So why remain on a static licensing model that is based on a guesstimate that you can only true up, but never true down? Companies should explore the benefits of License Included options that allow you to pay for licensing by the hour for what you are truly using. We are not saying that it never makes sense to use your existing volume licenses in a BYOL model, but it is important to do your due diligence to understand the best long term strategy
3. Have an ongoing optimization plan – While you can save a lot of money by moving your server infrastructure to the cloud, it is important to re-invest a portion of those saving on a process to keep your cloud environment optimized after you migrate. Many workloads will not remain static. Some will increase in compute while other may decrease. Furthermore, many organizations fail to turn off servers that are no longer needed leading to unnecessary cloud costs. There are many good tools and managed services providers that will help you control and optimize your cloud costs on an ongoing basis.
For more information on how EVOLVE Cloud Services can assist you with optimizing your cloud and software licensing costs, please contact us at info@evolvecloudservices.com or call us at 480-770-6352.