Cloud Computing: 8 Hidden Costs
If you're not careful, hidden charges can make your next cloud bill significantly more expensive than you budgeted for.
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From our cellphone bills to airline tickets, and even home mortgages, our world is filled with hidden charges. As hidden charges add up, they can cause a significant number of unexpected expenses. In a sense, cloud computing is no different. If you're not careful, hidden charges can creep up, and your next cloud bill may end up being significantly more expensive than you budgeted for.
There are eight different cloud computing areas that catch IT administrators off guard. While some relate to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud setups, keep in mind that there are hidden costs to Software-as-a-Service models as well. While you may not have to worry about forgetting an orphaned VM, you're still vulnerable to over/under provisioning a cloud application that charges based on tiered user counts and/or storage requirements.
The important thing to note is that hidden charges are never truly hidden. Instead, by carefully learning about potential added-cost pitfalls, administrators can be on the lookout for, and properly architect around, these areas. While most cloud service providers operate in a relatively similar manner when it comes to charging for services, there are differences when it comes to charging customers. Not only do you have to know what to look for in a general sense, you must also do further research to see how costs are accumulated in each individual cloud space where your organization resides.
[ Avoid disaster. Read 9 Spectacular Cloud Computing Fails. ]
Another tactic for eliminating areas where hidden costs can crop up is simply talking to your service provider account manager. It's the account manager's job to keep you happy. While he or she might enjoy you paying for unnecessary services on a regular basis, the ultimate goal is to retain you as a pleased customer.
If you find yourself snagged in a hidden cost nightmare with no clear path out, your service provider's account manager is most likely your best bet. The account manager can help you work out a strategy to restructure your cloud services model and get your company's billing straightened out so that you're paying a reasonable rate for the services you actually need.
Once you've reviewed these potential cloud budget-killers, join us in the comments section below and let us know your experiences and suggestions related to hidden cloud costs.
Applications administrators tend to overestimate the demand for their latest and greatest enterprise applications. That's why over-provisioning is so common, and why you end up flooded with too many resources. Because cloud service providers make it so easy to max out a virtual server, that result becomes an inflated cost that creeps up stealthily. Sure, servers can be scaled back. But it's usually a slow process to figure out the right size. Until that happens, the company is paying for an over-inflated cloud.
If you can over-provision a cloud-managed service, it stands to reason that you can under-provision one as well. Under-provisioning is easier to detect and fix than over-provisioning, since it usually means that the service's performance is not acceptable. While it's easier to find under-provisioned cloud services, coming up with the funding to right-size your operation can be a much more difficult task.
Having too many admins in the cloud can cost you. What inevitably ends up happening is that server instances are spun up for a particular purpose, then never actually used. Cloud administrators sometimes don't communicate with each other, nor do they perform regular system audits. Cloud providers love it when you forget, since the server costs them nothing to spin up idle VMs while they collect big bucks from you over the course of weeks, months, and even years as these purposeless servers are left standing.
Many cloud service providers offer different tiers of storage pricing based on how accessible you need your data to be. Standard storage is frequently accessible, yet the most expensive. Then there's a semi-accessible tier, and also an infrequently accessed tier for data you want to keep, but expect to rarely need access to.
Cloud service providers are happy to offer any of the three tiers, because they all make money from businesses that don't carefully think about which tier structure they need for specific data. Companies that use the most expensive data storage for everything rarely access much of their data, and thus are paying too much up front. On the other hand, there are companies that use the cheaper tiers for data they need to access more often, and end up paying outrageous prices to get to that data when it is needed.
One of the cool things about some cloud providers is that they offer a menu of different virtual network and server instances that can be "rented" as virtual appliances. Load balancers, VPN concentrators, databases, and other resources are pre-loaded, and they can be instantly spun up. But unless you know exactly how often and how frequently these appliances will be used, choosing an instance size or payment model can be challenging. Appliances can be ordered in any number of configurations, and can be billed based on factors such as data rates, storage sizes, and hourly or yearly software charges. Not knowing exactly what you need out of your appliance often leads to higher-than-necessary costs in the long run.
Never shop for a cloud provider when you have an overflowing list of IT needs and tight timelines. In the long term, you'll end up with a cloud provider that no longer fits your needs or one that is charging you more than a competing provider. Then, when you try to move from one cloud provider to another, you quickly realize that all the data you moved into the cloud for free will cost you an arm and a leg to extract.
Troubleshooting is one of the most commonly overlooked costs. As troubleshooting becomes more complex and time consuming, it ultimately becomes much more expensive. Because there is often no end-to-end visibility into a cloud, in-house staff must work with the service provider to identify and resolve issues. Fully expect miscommunication, finger-pointing, and a slow process of identifying and resolving the root cause of complex technical issues.
This list of hidden costs isn't meant to scare you off cloud computing completely. Rather, we want to see you to go into it with a proper plan for what your organization actually needs. Perform due diligence when choosing and using cloud services. It's critical that communication, organization, and auditing are performed to shed light on costs that may otherwise be hidden. Once you have control over your environment, and understand where hidden costs can arise, you'll be much less surprised the next time your monthly cloud bill hits your inbox.
This list of hidden costs isn't meant to scare you off cloud computing completely. Rather, we want to see you to go into it with a proper plan for what your organization actually needs. Perform due diligence when choosing and using cloud services. It's critical that communication, organization, and auditing are performed to shed light on costs that may otherwise be hidden. Once you have control over your environment, and understand where hidden costs can arise, you'll be much less surprised the next time your monthly cloud bill hits your inbox.
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