Reducing Your Azure Cost Seems Impossible? We've Got Good News For You

Reducing Azure costs can really be challenging, especially if a business is completely dependent on the same. In 2017, ShareGate reportedly spent $250,000 on Azure, even with an Azure expert in the team. Experts believe that the costs spike due to cloud sprawl. Cloud sprawl is basically the uncontrolled proliferation of the cloud instances, services, and providers used by an organization.

It occurs only when an organization lacks control over its cloud resources. For instance, a software developer might launch a new workload in Amazon Web Services or deploys a private cloud to test new software and then forgets to turn it down when not in use. It is noteworthy that businesses pay for public cloud computing resources every month, which is why such proliferations prove to be very costly.

How to Reduce Azure Costs?

Some of the most common ways to reduce the cost are by opting for monthly plans with Microsoft. In other words, if a company has spending limits enabled on its Azure account, Microsoft will suspend its cloud computing service if the company exceeds the pre-determined monthly limit.

Some companies also believe in reshuffling pricing plans and switching regions to achieve Azure price reduction. However, cloud management services must be able to do it in an organized manner to be able to control the costs.

Reduce the Wasted Spend

When resources are left running even when they are not in use, it tends to be costly for companies. The second wastage of resources is when companies buy VMs purchase higher capacity than is actually needed for workloads. It must be remembered that prices go up with increased capacity, which in turn leads to overcapacity.

Microsoft’s System Dashboard

Make use of the system dashboard, a tool added by Microsoft, which enables system administrators to make their own dashboards. With the help of these dashboards, system administrators monitor, asses and monitor the performance of the VMs that have been deployed. They can decide whether a software deployed should be retained or shut down, thus keeping the space free for more important work.

Install a Scheduling Software

Scheduling software is easy to install and implement, especially when they are applied as a SaaS app. System administrators can take the security in their hand and customize gateways through single-view dashboards and assign resources to their development teams as necessary. It is worth noting that in this set up the resources do not have to follow the same parking schedule.

In fact, resources can be parked individually or according to policies created through the Azure scheduling software. If access is required during a shutdown the scheduling can be snoozed to provide access to the entity. This measure helps in preventing a scenario when the team members forget to return the VMs to their dormant state.

Avail the Indirect Microsoft Azure Cost Savings

Apart from the direct Microsoft Azure account, there are other means to save up money. In such a setup, the administrators have more oversight over the company’s resources and check which resources are lying unused. These resources can then be reassigned and placed into a cheaper price plan or just retired.

Another way, this helps in saving time and money is by helping developers save man-hours, which can be used for developing the business. Resources also have an added security and can in no way be hacked. This saves money because there is no additional requirement of network security teams or virus scans that demand more capital.

Identify the Right Resource Size

A lot of costs can be saved if the right resource size is engaged at the very beginning, instead of cutting down on the size after the estimate is clear. It might require the right RAM space, CPU power, SSD drives, GPUs, etc.  

If you get the estimates wrong, you end up paying more than you need since your machines sit idle. Having said that, it is not always easy to determine the right size required for a business. Businesses, thus engage oversized spaces and then forget about it, while paying for the idle resources.

Downscale with Measurements

Wish to downsize a VM? Check the stats first before you decide on that. Check on the CPU percentage and Memory Percentage graphs for each of the resources in the Axure Portal and decide on the idle size. In all cases, if it is observed that both the metrics are under 50%, one can confidently downscale the same. For more detailed information talk to our expert's contact