Cloud storage is a popular option for businesses. However, storing large amounts of data can be expensive.
Luckily, there are some strategies you can implement and cloud software development services to request to maximize your cost savings.
Before choosing cloud storage, you should know what is cloud storage? One is to choose the right cloud storage provider. This can help you save money by optimizing your usage and ensuring you don’t end up paying for unnecessary features.
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Know Your Needs
Cloud storage providers offer a range of storage tiers that vary in cost. Selecting the right tier is key to maximizing cost savings.
When choosing a storage class, consider the amount of time that data is likely to be needed. Switch to a different storage class if you have held onto many objects for over a year.
Similarly, you can save money by setting policies to automatically adjust your storage class based on object lifecycle status and usage patterns. This will help reduce the likelihood of data getting caught in a hot or cold tier that isn’t best suited for your use case.
Moreover, monitoring and decommissioning cloud services you no longer need is essential. This can save you from a costly bill spike.
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Negotiate
Cloud storage pricing is often the number one barrier to achieving cost savings. But less than 20% of organizations are leveraging cloud cost-saving options.
Fortunately, there are some proven strategies to manage cloud storage pricing and maximize the potential of your cloud infrastructure. These include using intelligent cost allocation tools to understand cloud costs and proactively optimize pricing.
Ensure you have a complete, organized, and comprehensive understanding of your company’s entitlements on a line-item basis, along with the actual utilization levels. This critical dataset will help you show Microsoft’s actual value received versus fees paid and is a crucial negotiation lever.
It’s also important to consider termination language within your cloud contract. This is especially important if you’re unhappy with the product or service before its end date.
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Evaluate Your Options
Storage costs are a significant line item for cloud budgets. And they’re often the least understood, thanks to a complex array of factors that can make it hard for business leaders to manage these costs effectively.
To get the most out of cloud storage, evaluate what you’re storing, where, and how much it will cost to retrieve at any given time. This is especially important if your data is moving to the cloud.
Another option is to consider the types of tiers or classes you use for your data. Archival data you don’t anticipate accessing regularly may be the ideal candidate for lower-cost storage tiers.
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Monitor Your Usage
With cloud storage billed separately, monitoring your usage and maximizing cost savings is essential. Several tools are available that can help you do this, including those from AWS and Microsoft.
Typically, cloud storage costs can be dramatically reduced by monitoring and minimizing data usage. For example, if your team only accesses files every 31 days, you can cut storage costs significantly by switching to a lower class that doesn’t require frequent access.
Another way to reduce storage costs is by using object lifecycle management to adjust and delete objects based on their stored time. This can be achieved through an automated process that’s configured programmatically.
A cloud storage management solution that provides a holistic view of data across all silos–from on-prem to the cloud–is the best choice for implementing these strategies. It’s also critical to use an analytics-driven approach to cloud data management that enables continuous optimization based on actual data use.
