How to Get the Cheapest Cloud Computing

Are you looking for the cheapest cloud computing available? Depending on your current situation, there are a few ways you might find the least expensive cloud offering that fits your needs.

If you don’t currently use the public cloud, or if you’re willing to have infrastructure in multiple clouds, you’re probably looking for the cheapest cloud provider. If you have existing infrastructure, there are a few approaches you can take to minimize costs and ensure they don’t spiral out of control.

Find the Cloud Provider that Offers the Cheapest Cloud Computing

There are a variety of small cloud providers that attempt to compete by dropping their prices. If you work for a small business and prefer a no-frills experience, perhaps one of these is right for you.

However, there’s a reason that the “big three” cloud providers — Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud — dominate the market. They offer a wide range of product lines, and are continually innovating. They have a low frequency of outages, and their scale requires a straightforward onboarding process and plenty of documentation.

Whatever provider you decide on, ensure that you’ll have access to all the services you need — is there a computing product, storage, databases? How good is the customer support?

For more information about the three major providers’ pricing, please see this whitepaper on AWS vs. Google Cloud Pricing and this article comparing AWS vs. Azure pricing.

Locked In? How to Get the Cheapest Cloud Computing from Your Current Provider

Of course, if your organization is already locked into a cloud computing provider, comparing providers won’t do you much good. Here’s a short checklist of things you should do to ensure you’re getting the cheapest cloud computing possible from your current provider:

• Use Reserved Instances for production — Reserved instances can save money — as long as you use them the right way. More here. (This article is about AWS RIs, but similar principles apply to Azure’s RIs and Google’s Committed Use discounts.)
• Only pay for what you actually need — there are a few common ways that users inadvertently waste money, such as using larger instances than they need, and running development/testing instances 24/7 rather than only when they’re needed. (Here at ParkMyCloud, we’re all about reducing this waste — try it out.)
• Ask — it never hurts to contact your provider and ask if there’s anything you could be doing to get a cheaper price. If you use Microsoft Azure, you may want to sign up for an Enterprise License Agreement. Or maybe you qualify for AWS startup credits.

Get Credit for Your Efforts

While finding the cheapest cloud computing is, of course, beneficial to your organization’s common good, there’s no need to let your work in spending reduction go unnoticed. Make sure that you track your organization’s spending and show your team where you are reducing spend.

We’ve recently made this task easier than ever for ParkMyCloud users. Now, you can not only create and customize reports of your cloud spending and savings, but you can also schedule these reports to be emailed out. Users are already putting this to work by having savings reports automatically emailed to their bosses and department heads, to ensure that leadership is aware of the cost savings gained… and so users can get credit for their efforts.

Originally published at www.parkmycloud.com on October 10, 2017.