How to Lower Your TCO Using Cloud Deployments

A large number of IT organisations are spending a lot of funds on computing storage nowadays. These costs are rising as the days go by, and there might be ways to reduce expenses on it. Before the eighties, most companies were not aware of this term. The IT industry was just budding, and businesses began to find out how costly it was to own hardware and software in the long term. A report discovered that these costs could jump to eight times the purchase cost after several years.  Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) describes the value of a product or service and the fees it takes to run it. The overall costs include the purchase price, usage price, maintenance price, and disposal, both physical and cloud. TCO can also be used to check charges against reward-focused apps, hardware, and services. By examining the TCO, businesses can, with ease, analyze all costs concerned to assist in making vital decisions. When businesses move their applications and workloads to the cloud, they have to make provisions for support as services, some of which include storage, monitoring, access management, and networking. These services can cost more than budgeted, so it is pertinent to factor in extra to get a better estimate. This way, there will be no hidden costs when the budget does not count.

Ways to Reduce TCO with Cloud Deployments

Below are some ways to lower the total cost of ownership using cloud deployments:

Automation

The longer cloud functions and failures are left unattended, the greater the costs. However, by using cost-optimization tools that possess automation features and capabilities, one can develop immediate answers to cloud misconfigurations and lessen their effect as soon as they happen. Also, these features assist you in reducing and optimizing costs without monotonous, manual operations while pushing your team to focus on proper cloud management.

Utilise a Good Cloud Governance Tool

A solid cloud billing tool is vital for any cloud use case. This tool should be used not only to reduce costs but also to ensure there is no waste in terms of streamlining. The right tool helps select the best cloud use case depending on cost and size. It also helps you forecast the costs of running your business’s workloads and adjust the budget when necessary.

Restrict Access to the Cloud

One offering of the cloud that makes it so widely accepted is its ability to be self-serviceable. Businesses and organizations regularly allow users at all levels to access the cloud for various uses, ranging from the provision, deployment, monitoring, and troubleshooting of workloads. Open access is necessary but can also induce unplanned, unforeseen, and needless costs. To streamline processes and reduce costs, some businesses limit access to the cloud to specific users who are well-versed in cloud cost management. Some of these users with experience are cloud architects and engineers. These professionals are well-versed in cost structures and are capable of developing cloud infrastructure that optimizes spending with performance. Also, the IT staff responsible for cloud use will define the most suitable cost-control methods for the business.

Optimise Cloud Storage

Storing data in the cloud is an excellent way to lessen the use of on-premises hardware as storage needs and preferences evolve. Optimization in the IT sector helps improve and manage control over the constantly increasing amount of data being gathered from various sources. It is pertinent to create several data lines and store the data from them in each separate data line. It is also vital to distribute all workloads effectively between different types of storage to increase the quality of data access, storage, and control.

Reduce Failover Site TCO with Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery

Several cloud backup solutions allow businesses to off-site critical data to a cloud provider’s systems for economic purposes. Businesses also need to find a way to speedily recover failed applications for businesses in the cloud (off-site) and at their primary site (on-site). Furthermore, they require either non-complex solutions or solutions with low TCO. Disaster recovery services can help your business get its site back on quickly. They can also help maximize benefits such as data protection, increased manageability, storage optimization, and reduced disaster recovery costs. How? By using a reduced-cost failover platform.

Run Workloads in Cheaper Areas

Compute demands and peak hours affect cloud package pricing. Moving workloads between certain physical service areas or regions where demands and prices have a high-cost difference can lessen cloud costs. Provided that standard and popular storage services are capable of supporting a particular location, the workload will experience little or no latency difference between service areas. However, regulatory and security compliance laws and guidelines can inhibit workloads from being managed in specific regions. Also, cost management must be a vital aspect of a business’s cloud strategy. In a few cases, a business can perform certain tasks or deploy some workloads, such as software testing, on a completely different cloud platform when the cost is becoming a significant factor.

Managed IT Asia Can Help You Lower Your TCO!

Managed IT Asia is a managed IT company based in Singapore. We offer cloud and VoIP services for businesses in and around Singapore. We also provide 24/7 services for everything that needs to be done in your IT setup. You can contact us straight away to get started.