We didn’t see any significant cost-related moves from cloud providers last month, so hopefully you’re doing some optimization on your own! However, there’s still plenty to talk about in the cloud cost world:
- We released the results of our own 2024 State Of Cloud Cost Report.
- The FinOps Foundation announced a series of conference calls that may pique your interest.
- A surprising number of companies are struggling to manage cloud costs, but yours doesn’t have to be one of them.
Get the details here!
Top Cloud Cost News From April 2024
1. Our “2024 State Of Cloud Cost Report” reinforced the idea that engineering-led optimization is paramount to good cost control
As an industry leader in cloud cost management, CloudZero has to stay on top of the latest trends, concerns, and solutions in the cloud world. We just wrapped up our 2024 survey — similar to our survey from 2022 — of 1,000 engineers and finance specialists and gained a lot of interesting insights.
One of the major highlights is that allowing engineers to own their contributions toward cloud costs is one of the best (if not the best) ways to keep costs under control. Engineering-led optimization also helps keep Engineering and Finance working together harmoniously toward shared goals, rather than bickering over budgets.
It’s well worth a careful read-through if you want to see how your own company compares in terms of strengths and weaknesses related to cloud costs.
2. The FinOps Foundation released schedules and registration information for a series of upcoming “community calls”
Want to touch base with FinOps specialists and other companies practicing FinOps in your region? Hop on one of the upcoming regional community calls hosted by the FinOps Foundation.
Act quickly to join the South United States call on May 7th or the Northeast United States call on May 14th. Toward the end of the month, on May 28th, Canada will have its own community call.
Calls last for one hour and are largely discussion-based. There are no formal presentations; just show up with your questions and be prepared to get to know your fellow FinOps practitioners!
3. Companies that have not yet settled into a cloud cost management strategy are feeling the strain
Globally, poor cloud cost management is a problem. A new study reported that a shocking 72% of surveyed companies around the world spent more than their budgeted amount on cloud costs over the last fiscal year.
Largely, this seems to be the result of not having a plan for managing costs early in the development cycle. These same studies cite that only 6% of leaders feel their cost strategies are proactive, despite 65% saying that cost management is a top priority.
By the time these companies receive their cloud bills, the resources have already been used, and there’s no going back in time to fix the problem. Then, the cycle repeats every single month because they still don’t have a means of proactively managing cloud costs.
The solution is to “shift left,” as we say in the development world. That is, focus on controlling costs from the very beginning of a project — ideally from the initial planning phases. If you haven’t already implemented a platform that allows you to do this (such as CloudZero), yours might be one of the companies struggling to keep costs under control.
“Shift Left” And Allow Your Engineers To Take Control Of Their Costs With CloudZero
Why settle for being one of the pack when you can proactively take control of your cloud costs and gain a competitive edge?
One of the reasons we conduct surveys of SaaS companies and write these monthly news reports is to help business leaders like yourself make substantive moves toward getting your costs where you need them to be.
Let us know what your cost goals are, and we’ll provide the solutions and the knowledge to get you to your finish line.
to see how easy and intuitive it can be to manage your cloud costs.
The Cloud Cost Playbook
The step-by-step guide to cost maturity
