Investing in the right systems, assets, and infrastructure is critical to business success. It can be the difference between profitability and loss. Businesses employ several methods to determine the value of a product or service before purchase or adoption. One of those methods is the total cost of ownership. Total cost of ownership (TCO) is the sum of all costs involved in the purchase, operation, and maintenance of a given asset during its lifetime.

While there are many advantages to using Amazon Web Services (AWS), cost management can be complicated because so many factors impact your AWS bill. Account setup, savings plans, and a number of other factors can all affect your AWS charges and usage. In this article, we’ll introduce 10 AWS cost management best practices that promote optimization, and how you can go beyond AWS cost management by using an advanced cloud cost intelligence tool.

There’s no question that the cloud offers efficiencies and innovation opportunities that are near impossible to replicate on-premise. In fact, Amazon reports that companies achieve 31% infrastructure cost savings, as well as 62% more efficient IT infrastructure management, when they move to AWS (and that doesn’t include the many other cost benefits — like improved security and on-demand services). But the extent of those efficiencies can vary.

A common misconception around cloud computing is that it’s automatically cheaper than running an on-premise infrastructure. Unfortunately, when businesses switch to (or consider switching to) the cloud, their cloud savings may not be immediately evident. In fact, some businesses accrue more monthly costs with the on-demand cloud model than they would with on-premise systems. This begs the question: Is cloud computing really cost-effective?

Businesses are always looking for ways to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. For software-driven companies, DevOps is one approach that helps to achieve this. The goal of DevOps is faster software delivery to the end-user while maintaining high software quality. DevOps enhances collaboration between operations and development teams for faster code deployment. When evaluating the effectiveness of your DevOps model, it is critical to use metrics relevant to your organization.

CloudZero is a platform that helps you understand cost — but that doesn't mean it's purely a finance tool. In fact, unlike most other cloud cost management and optimization solutions, it’s built for engineering. However, CloudZero still makes a lot of finance teams very happy. First of all, the work that engineering teams do while using CloudZero saves money, which every finance team appreciates.