Understanding cloud billing.
Cloud billing is a collection of tools that help you track and understand your Cloud expenditure, including how you pay your bills and optimize ongoing costs. To set up cloud billing, you need to have a linked account that can ‘see’ your cloud-based projects.
There are a few different providers, depending on your cloud, but cloud proividers run its own cloud billing service, which is most useful to any organization that heavily uses its products.
Why would you want cloud billing?
As stated above, understanding cloud billing can help organizations better manage their cloud costs, identify areas where costs can be reduced, and optimize cloud spend. It’s also useful for helping you understand the inner workings of your organization as a payment method that oversees your cloud-based systems, data usage, storage and other optimization strategies.
How does cloud billing work?
Cloud billing can help your organization to:
- Analyze ongoing cloud bills in order to understand the costs associated with cloud services and resources and identify areas where costs can be reduced.
- Implement cost allocation tags to help categorize costs based on service provided, resources, and department usage, thus helping better outline where any costs come from.
- Identify cost drivers, such as underutilized resources or unexpected charges, to identify areas where costs can be reduced.
- Optimize cloud spend based on cost data and usage patterns, adjusting resource allocation to reduce costs while still meeting business requirements.
- Use cost optimization tools like AWS Cost Explorer or Azure Cost Management to identify cost savings opportunities and optimize cloud spend.
- Use reserved instances and savings plans to save money on cloud costs, ensuring that resources are being used most cost-effectively.
- Track commitments against actual usage.
The value of cloud billing
Understanding cloud billing and any ongoing costs can help organizations identify areas where costs can be reduced, ensuring savings based on the removal of redundant or underutilized systems. It also allows organizations to track the utilization of committed digital resources to make better budgeting decisions in future.
Main advantages of a cloud billing program
- Provides transparency and visibility into cloud costs
- Helps identify cost optimization opportunities
- Enables accurate budgeting and forecasting
- Facilitates effective cost management and control
- Helps optimize resource utilization and reduce waste
- Improves cost predictability and cost efficiency.
Common technologies
- AWS Cost Explorer
- Azure Cost Manager
- Google Billing
A common user story
“By analyzing cloud bills, using cost tracking tools, implementing cost reduction strategies, optimizing resource usage, and using reserved instances, we can help our organization reduce cloud costs, improve efficiency, and comply with security and compliance requirements. This will enable us to invest in higher-priority projects, achieve our business objectives, and effectively budget for the future.”
Any questions?
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