Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

August 2021

How To Significantly Tame The Cost of Autoscaling Your Cloud Clusters

Hi everyone. My name is Heidi Carson and I’m a product manager here at Pepperdata. Today, I’m going to share a bit about how you can tame the cost of autoscaling your cloud clusters. As you may well be aware, the incredible flexibility and scalability of the public cloud make it an appealing environment for modern software development. But, that same flexibility and scalability can lead to runaway costs when the cloud doesn't scale the way you might expect.

10 Kubernetes Architecture Best Practices You Should Be Following

Looking to optimize your Kubernetes architecture? While the word “Kubernetes” translates to “helmsman” (i.e., someone who steers a ship), Kubernetes ultimately functions more like an orchestra conductor than a ship captain. Kubernetes (also known as K8s) simplifies the process of orchestrating containers for engineers . This frees engineering up to focus on innovation, reduce time-to-market, and optimize cloud spend.

What Are Spot Instances? And When Should You Use Them?

EC2 Spot Instances, according to Amazon , can potentially save you up to 90% of what you’d otherwise spend on On-Demand Instances. While it’s been proven that even Reserved EC2 instances are cheaper than their On-Demand counterparts, it turns out Spot Instances are additionally capable of pushing their discounts beyond the reach of the Reserved Instances .

Spend Intelligence: Enjoy the Ride!

Every product is a never-ending journey and Ivanti Neurons for Spend Intelligence is no exception to the rule. From the very beginning, our teams have set out to target core fundamental problems that we hear people in asset management struggling with on a day-to-day basis. To imagine this on more metaphorical level, just think for a moment: you are going on a road trip and your next destination is an amazing seaside resort with fabulous weather with your every want and desire close at hand.

What Is Cloud Management? The Ultimate Guide

According to AWS, “Creating a software system is a lot like constructing a building. If the foundation is not solid, structural problems can undermine the integrity and function of the building.” This is especially true when it comes to the cloud. If an organization doesn’t effectively oversee key areas of its foundation, it’s likely the result is not going to be successful. When it comes to cloud management, we look at it through the lens of the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

How CloudZero Manages Cloud Costs During Our Product Discovery Process

Like any SaaS organization, CloudZero cares about our COGS, margin, and unit cost. As you can imagine, we have a fair amount of insight into how those numbers are changing every day thanks to being “customer zero” on our cloud cost intelligence platform. Talking with other companies, I often find that the best organizations understand that measuring the cost implications of new products and features once you’ve deployed them can be too late.

Cloud Agnostic: What Does It Really Mean And Why Do You Need It?

The cloud computing space is constantly evolving — a fact that can sometimes set the stage for inconsistencies and confusion around both industry terminology and best practices. Cloud agnostic is one of those confusing terms, as is cloud native. But with the number of cloud agnostic and cloud native applications growing, it’s important to set the record straight.

What Is AWS Auto Scaling? And When Should You Use It?

Whether you’re growing rapidly and need to expand your infrastructure or demand has slowed and you need to scale down, AWS Auto Scaling can help. While manual scaling is time-intensive and costly, auto scaling is an automated process that adjusts capacity for predictable performance and costs. Auto scaling can help you optimize how your application is used and reduce wastage and optimize cloud spend.

6 Strategic Recommendations FP&A Can Make With Cloud Cost Intelligence

If you're in FP&A, it can sometimes feel like outsiders think your job is all about routine tasks, like tracking budgets and reporting on cost — which couldn’t be further from the truth. A great FP&A professional deeply understands the business, has a strong command of its metrics, and uses that data to serve as a trusted advisor and partner to stakeholders. You’re not just a “counter” and “tracker” — you’re a driver of strategic outcomes.

What Is AWS Sizing? 10+ Best Practices And Tips

According to usage trends observed by Amazon, sizing is typically not a primary concern for many organizations when they move to the cloud. These companies migrate in order to prioritize speed and performance over the cost benefits of AWS sizing. It’s understandable, though, why sizing tends to be ignored. Amazon’s flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model makes the cost of its services seem easily manageable at first.

5 Tactical Ways To Align Engineering And Finance On Cloud Spend

Finance and engineering both thrive on efficiency. So when companies realize they’re wasting cloud spend, but aren’t sure where or how, both teams become frustrated. It’s remarkable how common this scenario is, particularly in the past five years. Before the pandemic, Gartner reported companies wasted over $14 billion in 2019 on cloud services. During the height of the pandemic and cloud adoption spurt in 2020, IDG reported that 70% of US businesses overspent by as much as 62%.