SaaS is a competitive sector, so finding ways to win on gross margin is increasingly crucial. By finding sustainable strategies that either increase your revenue or minimize your cost of goods sold (COGS), your SaaS company can gain a competitive advantage. Every SaaS brand wants to be profitable, but the definition of profitability varies greatly.

This is part three of seven in our Frugal Architect blog series. Read part one here, and part two here. In case you weren’t as giddy as CloudZero was at re:Invent this past year, we wanted to recount the seven laws outlined by Werner Vogels, Amazon’s CTO, which he’s bundled into a framework called “The Frugal Architect” (check out the whole framework here). What is “The Frugal Architect”?

In traditional engineering organizations, development and operations teams are often siloed, a scenario that can lead to friction between them. For example, developers are encouraged to write and release more and better code. Operations engineers are responsible for preventing errors and bugs from affecting customer experiences. As a result, operations teams frequently serve as gatekeepers and can significantly slow deployments down – to ensure everything works first.

Cloud costs are notoriously hard to predict—trickier than deciphering the emotions of a housecat. Traditional cost management tools leave many companies with a lack of visibility into where their money is going, which holds back engineering teams from making informed savings decisions. These tools also fail to bridge the gap with finance teams, who speak a different language than their developer counterparts.

Managing cloud costs has been the top challenge in cloud computing for more than half a decade now. It’s bigger than cloud security or hybrid cloud management. Several studies estimate that more than a third of cloud budgets could not be accounted for in 2023 alone. If you are a current or prospecting Amazon Web Services (AWS) customer, AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Pricing Calculator can help you manage your costs better.

Cloud infrastructure scaling can assist in rightsizing cloud resources in various ways. When discussions occur regarding scaling, its context can often refer to adding resources. However, it can also refer to removing resources. Preparing for how your cloud infrastructure scales begins with thought-out planning, design, and management of resource and tool allocations. This can save your organization time and costs that could otherwise negatively affect your employees, customers, and company.

AWS remains the largest cloud service provider (CSP) of the 21st century. It also provides over 240 cloud-based products and services. In some cases, these services help customers like you collect, analyze, and act on data about cloud usage and related costs. In this post, we explore how AWS services support FinOps’ best practices, including the features they offer. If you are looking for even more robust AWS FinOps tools, we will also include third-party platforms.

Efficient code can be defined by numerous factors, in addition to what others deem necessary based on their experiences. Per this article, we will define it as: Measuring and comparing your code on its design, optimization, and performance; while considering its use cases, compute resources, quality, scalability, and structure. Along with our definition, it is important to understand some key concepts before we dive further into some best practices and additional support to contextualize our definition.

Picture this. Half of organizations say their cloud bill is too high. And, only three out of ten organizations know exactly where their cloud spend is going. That’s according to the State of Cloud Cost Intelligence Report we released based on a survey of 1,000 engineering and finance professionals. Here’s the thing. This cloud cost management challenge isn’t limited to just a single cloud service provider.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has emerged as the leader in cloud computing. As the dominant cloud service provider, AWS offers a vast array of solutions encompassing computing power, storage options, and networking capabilities to businesses across the globe. Its popularity stems not only from its comprehensive services, but also from its scalability, allowing businesses of all sizes to expand their cloud footprint without unprecedented ease and flexibility.

The modern software development lifecycle comprises two key phases: continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery or deployment (CD). In both stages, automation reduces manual labor, minimizing human errors. That enables DevOps teams to focus on mission-critical work instead of continually fixing mistakes. Automating CI/CD also provides a check and balance system for rolling back errors. Aside from ensuring optimal system performance, this also improves other areas, like security and compliance.

When Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its new Arm-based processors, some circles believed it was a game-changer for the public cloud markets. To begin with, it was the first time Arm architecture would roll out for enterprise-grade utility, and at a colossal scale. Arm processors had only run on smaller, less demanding devices such as iPhones. So why adopt it for much more demanding workloads in cloud services?

Automation is the result of taking a manual task or process and making it automatic with little to no manual intervention. It plays a crucial role in optimizing your cloud spend, as it can be applied to save several hours in various scenarios within your service’s operation. Here, at CloudZero, discussing automation is no stranger to us. We have information about what automation is and some common tools to help in this guide.

The beginning of a new year is a time ripe for innovation. But implementing new ideas to scale quickly while keeping cloud costs down is a delicate balance to strike. January’s cloud cost news brings positive shifts in the market from AWS, Google, and SAP.

This is part two of seven in our Frugal Architect blog series. Read part one here. In case you weren’t as giddy as CloudZero was at re:Invent this year, we wanted to recount the seven laws outlined by Werner Vogels, Amazon’s CTO, which he’s bundled into a framework called “The Frugal Architect” (check out the whole framework here). What is “The Frugal Architect”? A constitution of sorts for how engineers can build high-functioning, cost-efficient cloud software.