3 Ways DevOps Helps Achieve Cost Control at Scale

The trend toward cloud transformation continues to build momentum as more companies move their workloads to the cloud in pursuit of increased efficiency, agility, and reduced risk. Gartner forecasts that global spending on public cloud services will grow 20.7% to $591.8 billion in 2023. Yet while cloud transformation can unlock many benefits, some companies are losing out on economic gains because they lack the right design and controls to achieve cloud operations at scale. That’s where DevOps can help.

Under a DevOps model, IT departments can accelerate their cloud transformations in a faster, more reliable way, all while maintaining guardrails and reducing time to delivery. The key is to have the right design, automation, and governance.  Properly designed cloud architecture allows teams to gain efficiencies, while infrastructure-as-code automation of the architecture provides scale. And governance provides the oversight needed to implement cost control.

If your organization wants to unlock the economic benefits that come with cloud operations at scale, the right planning can make all the difference between a successful transformation and one that fails to deliver on the promise of the cloud. Following are three key ways a DevOps model can help achieve cost control in your cloud transformation.

1. Design Cloud Architecture for Efficiency

In cloud transformations, the vast majority of cost challenges are a result of poorly designed architecture, such as creating a server farm of 40 servers when you only need three, or selecting a 32-CPU machine when a 4-CPU machine will do the job. While governance and automation can help catch those things, it’s always more efficient to design architecture well in the first place. Companies find significantly more cost savings opportunities when they take a proactive approach to design.

We recommend using cloud-native technology where possible, like EKS intelligent workload clusters instead of virtual machines. Such cloud-native technologies provide faster build times, make updates and upgrades easier, and reduce overall labor. In some cases, IT departments find they can completely eliminate downtime during maintenance windows.

2. Automate to Achieve Scale

Once you have an efficient design in place, automation allows you to reproduce your elegant cloud-native architecture at a scale of 10x, 100x, or 1000x, all while remaining fully auditable and accountable via a GitOps workflow. With the right automation tools in place, every change is tracked, and technology is used to sync “expected configuration” (code) with “actual configuration” (deployments).

3. Implement Governance of Cloud Architecture

Democratization of cloud architecture design patterns requires oversight, and that oversight can be implemented via automated policies, too. It’s possible to proactively place limits on cloud sprawl, whether your limits relate to where workloads can exist, how many there are, how much they cost, which services can be consumed, or what settings are allowed (or not allowed). And, as a safety net, implementing cost tools and budgets inherent to the cloud provider can drive the implementation of future policies.

Rein in Cloud Transformation Costs with DevOps

Cloud transformation allows organizations to unlock tremendous benefits, but costs can quickly spiral without the right planning and controls in place. An experienced DevOps team will help implement the best design, automation, and governance to keep costs under control.

Want to explore how your organization can achieve cost control at scale with DevOps and infrastructure-as-code? Contact us to schedule a meeting with our DevOps consulting team.