Guide to Cloud Support Services and How They Can Save You Money
Cloud Support Services
Cloud support services refer to services that provide platforms, software, applications, and other infrastructure to the end-user. Availing such services enables an organization to offload the intricacies associated with the management and maintenance of resources. Cloud support services offer several benefits to organizations like ease of management and maintenance, accessibility, support, assistance, etc. It enables an organization to offload complexities related to activities like application management, up-gradation, software patching, security, and compliance, to name a few. The major types of cloud services are Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). According to a survey by O’Reilly, more than 88 percent of organizations use cloud infrastructure in one form or the other.
Cloud Cost Management
Cloud cost management involves a series of operations related to cloud resource monitoring and measurement that enables an enterprise to ensure that its cloud spending remains well under control. A dedicated strategy for cloud cost management enables an enterprise to not only optimize its costs but also ensure that its performance is balanced and efficient. Subscribing to the services of cloud-managed service providers helps an organization to configure, control, manage, and optimize its cloud operations, cloud resources, and cloud spending.
How Cloud Support Services Can Save Costs?
1) Ease of Resource Management
Cloud computing services help an organization to do what they are ought to do the best: execute their day-to-day operations efficiently. Cloud service providers facilitate easy management of cloud resources. These resources can be accessed depending upon the needs of a business. This enables a business to scale up or cut down the consumption of resources. Moreover, most of the cloud service providers offer dedicated cloud management services that enable easy monitoring, and optimization of resources thus enabling an organization to get around the hassles of cloud management and ultimately paving the way to easier cost management.
2) Cost-Effective Data Backup
Cloud-based workspace facilitates efficient management of data by providing capabilities associated with data backups. Most of the managed service providers offer multi-cloud disaster recovery services that enable an organization to efficiently back up its data and facilitate faster restoration in case of eventualities or disasters; cyber-attacks, natural disasters, compromised equipment like servers, etc. This apart from facilitating easy and faster recovery from disaster also serves as a cost-effective solution as compared to the conventional methods of disaster recovery.
3) Right-Sizing
Cloud services present an opportunity for organizations to right-size their cloud infrastructure based on their requirements. As far as an on-premise infrastructure is concerned, scalability and provisioning are indeed daunting tasks. This requires that an organization reserve its capacity in advance which ultimately leads to enhanced cost overhead as well as ineffective utilization of resources as most of these resources might remain underutilized or unutilized. The right-sizing of cloud resources based on the business requirements can enable an organization to eliminate unnecessary cost overheads.
4) Cloud Pricing Tools
Most of the cloud service providers offer dedicated cloud cost pricing and estimation tools. For instance, tools like AWS CloudWatch enables an enterprise to manage their cloud costs efficiently by enabling them to track and monitor metrics and logs in real-time. AWS Cost Explorer is another pricing tool provided by Amazon Web Services that enables users to explore their costs. It has a built-in console and an easy-to-use user interface that enables users to understand, visualize and manage their cloud costs and usage at a higher level.
Cloud pricing calculators are interactive tools that enable an organization to estimate the pricing of its cloud infrastructure based on several parameters. Most of the major cloud service providers like Google, AWS, etc offer such price estimation calculators.
5) Avail Thirty Party Services to Get Around the Problem of Cloud Wastage
Cloud wastage refers to cloud resources that often go unused. Cloud wastage apart from draining the usage of resources also paves the way to booming cost overheads. Some of the best ways to get around the problem of cloud wastage are the usage of reserved instances and spot instances that are offered by several major cloud service providers like AWS. Most of the cloud service providers offer several pricing schemes apart from the most famous pay-as-you-go pricing model. Cloud service providers like AWS also offer schemes that enable users to avail higher discounts per unit volume of usage in accordance with the increase in capacity of usage.
6) Automation
Most of the cloud-managed service providers offer dedicated automated capabilities that enable an enterprise to switch off redundant resources. These automation capabilities are of considerable benefit given the fact most businesses may spin up some resources and forget to turn them off. This automatic turn-on and turn-off process enables an enterprise to get around the hassle associated with the manual switching of the resources and its monitoring. Automation can thereby enable a business to ensure that its cloud expenses are kept under control.
Conclusion
Cloud support services refer to a wide range of cloud services that are delivered to end-users by a service provider. With drastic variations in the way businesses are operating nowadays, cloud services have become more of a necessity rather than a choice. Cloud support services also enable an enterprise to eliminate its cost overheads by leveraging capabilities based on automation, right-sizing, pricing estimation, etc.
Activelobby is a company that provides cloud services for organizations. We provide you with our cloud management services that help you in the easy management and maintenance of your cloud platforms. As part of this, we ensure the round-the-clock security of your cloud model and patching of your applications to ensure the best protection from threats and vulnerabilities. If you haven’t adopted the cloud and are giving serious thought to it, we are happy to offer you our cloud migration services. We provide 24 by 7 support to our customers and clients.
