10 ways cloud can save you money over Christmas and New Year

The holiday season is upon us, bellies are full of turkey, the shoes are off and belts have been loosened.

The last thing you want to be worrying about is how much money your IT infrastructure is costing you running at full power while no-one is even using it.

Don’t worry though, CBR is here to help set your mind at ease and help you save some money over Christmas and New Year.

 

1. Move to the cloud

Not everyone has a cloud service in operation, so one of the first steps that you need to take is to actually move to the cloud.

The benefits have been well documented; greater agility and cost savings are just two of the perks, so it’s time to move.

Whether you have a cloud provider in mind or are unsure, there are plenty of options out there. Consultancy firms such as Accenture can help advise the best route to go and many cloud services like Google or AWS enable you to test them out to see if they are a good fit.

 

2. Plan ahead

You probably know your business better than anyone, so you will know when you have peak periods of demand and you know the sorts of requirement specifications you require.

Working with a cloud vendor to set up your infrastructure and requirements is important, going through due diligence shouldn’t be over-looked.

If you already have a cloud service, feel free to shop around and look at what others are offering, perhaps operating a multi-cloud strategy would better suit your requirements.

Roll up the cheapest services from one CSP when you need it and find another that may be cheaper for other services.

 

3. Lower power costs

Due to the economies of scale, cloud computing uses less electricity. If you are running your own data centre your servers may not be fully utilised, which results in idle servers that waste energy.

The benefit of using a cloud service provider is that they can charge you less than what you would normally pay for running your own data centre. Plus you don’t need to have your own data centre, which is another cost saving.

 

4. No up-front payments

As you can pay-as-you-use for your cloud environment and don’t necessarily require hardware to stand it up, you can save money by not having those server costs.

Since the infrastructure is basically rented, you don’t have to pay any up-front costs.

The payoff of this is that the money you may have spent, can be spent elsewhere – perhaps on innovating.

 

5. Lower IT staff costs

Good IT people are expensive, as Derek Collison, CEO, Apcera, told CBR: "The only thing that is getting more expensive in IT is people."

With someone else doing a lot of the work, there isn’t really the need for as many staff members focusing on your IT infrastructure.

This doesn’t mean that you have to fire your skilled IT workers; it just means you can redeploy them to other areas that will make more money for the business.

 

6. Cloud is elastic

The elasticity of cloud means that it can adapt to workload changes, so for example you’re an online retail store and Black Friday hits, your website, or app suddenly sees a huge increase of volume.

Instead of worrying that your servers can’t handle this, cloud’s elasticity can automatically respond to give you more resources; then it shrinks back down when volume decreases.

In addition to this, many cloud providers will only make you pay for what you use, so although you’ll pay more when volume is high, you pay less when it’s low.

 

7. Automate

Do you need your staff doing those mundane tasks that take up their time, like dealing with expenses? Well why not automate those tasks.

Much like with lower IT staff costs, you can redeploy your staff so that they are doing something a little more worthwhile.

 

8. Collaboration

The services that are available in the cloud are numerous, but one of the key areas that can be tapped into to save money is through collaboration apps.

It comes down to boosting productivity and increasing the efficiency of your operations.

Messaging, office and productivity suites are all designed to be more efficient and collaborative so that work can be done better.

 

9. Be lean

You can gorge yourself on mince pies and mulled wine, but don’t gorge yourself on applications and services that do the same thing.

This incorporates some of the advice from point two, where it’s important to plan ahead.

You can use a cloud management system that will enable you to have a simpler and better overview of what cloud services you are running, including applications.

 

10. Managed cloud

You may want to maintain some level of control over your cloud, but if you don’t then you can outsource all your problems to the cloud provider.

Depending on the level of your investment, you could be working with a third-party that provides you with assistance, or you may receive help from the CSP itself.

Whatever the case, you can sit back and relax, knowing that your IT is in capable hands