The goal of capacity planning is to match resources with demand. There are essentially three outcomes from this analysis. You can underestimate the resources you need (underprovision), which can hurt performance. You can overestimate (overprovision), which adds unnecessary costs. Or you can get it just right (rightsized). And, of course, you want to be rightsized at the lowest possible cost. Because many factors go into cloud capacity planning, it can feel like more of an art than a science.

Most companies overspend on cloud services. Many factors contribute to this problem, and while organizations know that their cloud budgets are bloated, they still struggle to reel in those costs. Are they implementing the tools and processes to track their cloud costs effectively? And are they adopting controls to instill discipline and accountability in their cloud spending habits? We explored these questions in our latest State of Multi-Cloud Management research report.

Most companies today have multiple cloud instances with multiple cloud service providers (CSPs) as well as an on-premises environment. It’s complex, but that doesn’t make it inherently wrong—there are usually good business reasons behind the decisions. It does, however, create management challenges.