How do you forecast and budget for cloud costs in a dynamic and scalable environment?

2 Define your objectives and KPIs

Once you have a clear picture of your current cloud situation, you can define your objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) for your cloud cost management framework. What are your business goals and expectations for your cloud investments, and how do they translate into measurable outcomes? How do you want to balance your cloud costs with your performance, availability, security, and compliance requirements? How do you want to allocate your cloud budget across your teams, projects, and departments, and how do you want to measure their efficiency and accountability? By defining your objectives and KPIs, you can align your cloud cost management framework with your business strategy and value proposition.

4 Implement governance and policies

Another key aspect of cloud cost management framework is governance and policies. Governance refers to the rules and guidelines that define how your organization manages its cloud resources and costs. Policies refer to the actions and mechanisms that enforce those rules and guidelines. For example, you can implement governance and policies to define who can access, provision, or modify your cloud resources, what standards and best practices they have to follow, and what limits or thresholds they have to respect. You can also implement governance and policies to automate your cloud cost optimization actions, such as shutting down unused resources, deleting orphaned resources, or applying discounts or credits. By implementing governance and policies, you can improve your cloud cost visibility, accountability, and compliance.

5 Monitor and optimize your cloud costs

Finally, you need to monitor and optimize your cloud costs on an ongoing basis. Monitoring means collecting and reporting data on your cloud usage, performance, and costs. Optimizing means identifying and implementing actions to improve your cloud cost efficiency and effectiveness. For example, you can monitor and optimize your cloud costs by using tools such as alerts, notifications, or reports to detect and address anomalies, issues, or trends. You can also monitor and optimize your cloud costs by using tools such as recommendations, suggestions, or benchmarks to compare and improve your cloud cost performance. By monitoring and optimizing your cloud costs, you can adjust your forecast and budget accordingly and achieve your desired outcomes.