Introduction
‘Cloud’ is one of the most popular terms one can
relate to. The terminology, in terms of its utility and
popularity, has gained wide recognition in the entire gamut of
the IT industry. In this article, we try to take a more
detailed approach towards understanding what is cloud, how to
align tasks with cloud infrastructure, the cost involved in a
cloud model, how to optimize cost, and basically how to make
the most efficient use of cloud in software
deliverables.
Why Cloud?
Remember the time when a software development life cycle
(SDLC) took ages (pun intended) to be completed. The organizations mostly followed a
step-by-step approach to meet the deliverables schedule. This
was a very tedious process and often the results consisted of
erroneous outcomes. As each phase of SDLC had to be finished
within a timeline, it was not possible to go back to the
previous stage for implementing any change and then resuming
with the ongoing process. This traditional approach, known as
the ‘Waterfall Model’, was not iterative in
nature, which caused inconveniences.
Over the years, the approach towards software development
took various forms as per industry requirements, and
ultimately, we have ended up with ‘Agile’. Agile
is simply a methodology of catering to the ‘implement as
per requirement’ approach. With such a humongous set of
feature-rich applications being released, all for the very
purpose of meeting the market demands, it has become
imperative to incorporate the end-user requirements in
applications with persistence.
Cloud has thus emerged as a savior in this ever-changing
technology battle, as it provides a robust platform to cope
with the dynamic nature of the software industry. A cloud
platform can be thought of as a decentralized infrastructure,
which assists with the server, storage, databases, networking,
analytics, and so on, which are crucial for achieving a
consistent and continuous integration and delivery of a
software product. With a cloud infrastructure in place, the
users of the platform can upload their code from any system,
irrespective of location. It also eliminates the hassles of
managing and provisioning a software development
environment.
Cloud Optimization
The process of analyzing and configuring essential cloud
resources, which form the core for the applications,
infrastructure, and volume of data to perform, is known as
Cloud Optimization. A cloud platform should be scalable enough
to enable the addition of enhancements in any software and
thus should facilitate maximum performance and speedier
deliverables.
Cloud Cost Optimization tools:
A cloud optimization tool helps organizations to manage their
expenditures on cloud services by monitoring whether the
services align with the utilization of resources. A cloud cost
optimization tool is software that notifies the user about the
least used resource and creates alerts for cost effective
packages as per the use.
There is a wide range of tools in the market, so which one to
choose?
Well, the purpose is to maximize performance at minimized
cost and assessing the capabilities of such tool, and largely
focusing on the Return on Investment (RoI) factors, before
opting for it.
Some of the popular cloud cost optimization tools are as
follows:
-
Amazon CloudWatch -
the tool offers monitoring capabilities that can be used by
developers, engineers, administrators to keep a check on the
resource usage, thereby deriving actionable insights that
aids in performance monitoring, optimizing resource
utilization, and capturing the overall operational health of
the cloud platform
-
ParkMyCloud -
it is a product by Turbonomic, which is a SaaS-based
platform. It can be very useful in identifying idle
resources and eliminating the need for using such resources.
This can save users from wasted cloud expenditure.
-
Nutanix Beam -
The tool is XiBeam and is a great source of cloud cost
optimization for public and private clouds. It has got
intelligent resource sizing and sharper accuracy in
monitoring utilization activities.
-
AWS Budgets -
the tool lets the user set custom alerts and budgets for
cost optimization. Organizations can create monthly, weekly,
or half-yearly reports which outline the budget’s
upper limit, based on a certain amount of use, which when
exhausted will be notified to the user. Thus, one can keep a
close vigil on their expenditure on the cloud by setting
limits and getting alerts for the same.
-
Azure Cost Management -
A product by Microsoft, Azure Cost Management is a
SaaS-based solution that helps organizations to monitor,
allocate, and optimize resources being used in the cloud
environment.
-
Cloud Zero
- Another cloud cost optimization model, which lays emphasis
on automated cost analysis and keeps up with the continuous
delivery workflow.
-
Spot Cloud Analyzer - Spot is a cloud computing and cost optimization tool which
was acquired by NetApp. Users of this tool can plan a very
simplified approach towards provisioning and autoscaling
their cloud infrastructure and control over expenditure on
Cloud. The unique feature of this app is that it provides
complete integration of Microsoft Azure’s Spot Virtual
Machines (VM), thus enabling the Azure group of users to
benefit from the combined platform.
-
CloudHealth - A product by VMware, this is a cloud platform that
facilitates automated cloud operations, reduced risk, and
control over expenditure. CloudHealth offers integration
with various other cloud solutions such as -
-
Amazon Web services -
a very comprehensive cloud platform that offers the most
feature-rich data services across the globe.
-
Amazon GuardDuty - an efficient threat detection mechanism, which helps to
monitor malicious and unauthorized activities in the AWS
cloud.
-
Amazon SQS -
With Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), users can send and
receive any volume of data without losing any message or
depending on any additional support.
-
Chef - The tool has a very simplified configuration and management
framework, which enables businesses to build, deploy, and
manage any software from anywhere across the globe.
-
Docker - This tool offers an end-to-end experience for developers,
as they can develop and scale distributed applications with
a secured approach to enhance efficiency and
innovation.
-
Datadog -
it is a monitoring service, which gathers data from servers,
database
applications, and various services to provide a unified
view of the applications running on the cloud. The features
are powered by a SaaS-based data analytics tool, which
provides a collaborative approach for developers and
operations teams to ensure performance problems are solved
on time.
-
New Relic - New Relics Software Analytics Cloud helps organizations to
monitor their software in the production environment, from
across any part of the globe. The aim of this organization,
New Relics, is to provide insights into real-time data to
more than 15,000 customers, globally.
Benefits of Cost Optimization tools:
Few noteworthy benefits of cost optimization tools are listed
as follows:
-
Keeping Unused Resources under check: Usually, the cloud tools are designed in a way that it
notifies the user about the daily usage of resources
(database, storage, networks). This is way, it saves the
user from paying extra when something is not of much use.
For instance, a Virtual Machine in the cloud environment is
no longer needed, so the platform will notify the user about
the same and it could thus be discontinued.
-
Identify Idle Resources: Suppose a cloud infrastructure is billed for a certain
percentage of CPU utilization but the actual usage might be
very less. This is where an efficient cloud optimization
strategy comes into the picture, which should consolidate
such different aspects into fewer resource utilization
mechanisms.
-
Resource Scheduling: An efficient cloud optimization model offers automatic
scheduling of resources, which means that the cloud model
will detect the least used resources and will discontinue
the services. This is definitely one big merit for using a
cloud cost optimization model, as it is a convenient and
efficient way to save expenditures
-
Right-sizing and Resource Cleanup: There are always options to discard the data which is no
longer in use and shall serve no purpose. Choosing the right
tool will help automate this process and scale up in terms
of storage space, thereby reducing wastage of
resources
Conclusion
Among the wide range of cloud cost optimization tools
available, the choice of a tool will largely depend on the
type of cloud infrastructure, the volume of resource
utilization, and the pace of application development. Any
organization would aim to maximum benefit at minimum cost and
therefore we encourage all the developers and engineers out
there to opt for a viable solution, which helps them build
better products for the audience with minimum efforts on the
management of resources used for application development and
deployment.