It seems like only yesterday when people were asking, “What is the cloud?” With the speed that technology evolves, the cloud has gone from innovation to everyday requirement in multiple offices in the San Jose/Silicon Valley area and around the world.

Between 2010 and 2019, the cloud computing market has increased nearly 200% and cloud adoption by companies is just about complete with approximately 90% of companies using at least one cloud service.

During the adoption phase, it wasn’t uncommon for companies to begin using multiple cloud solutions. The market not only has become saturated with cloud apps, many of them are task or industry specific, leading to their adoption even if other cloud tools are already being used.

Here we are now in 2020, and the cloud stampede dust has settled. Businesses are realizing that cloud services are taking up a larger chunk of their overall budget and looking for ways to cut costs and streamline.

56% of companies are planning to reduce or keep technology costs the same in 2020.

If you’re looking at ways to save money on your cloud infrastructure costs, we’ve got several tips to help you do that without sacrificing your cloud capabilities. 

Tips for Saving Money on Your Cloud Technology

Two things can happen to drive up cloud infrastructure costs at businesses. One is too many cloud platforms being used when less can accomplish the same tasks and processes. 

The other is a disjointed cloud infrastructure that is time consuming to manage and reduces team productivity.

Neither of these things is good for your bottom line or your overall efficiency. Here are some effective ways you can reduce cloud infrastructure costs at your company.

Look at Using PaaS Instead of SaaS

Software as a Service (SaaS) refers to individual cloud applications, such as a Salesforce or Office 365. Platform as a Service (PaaS) would be something like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.

The main difference is that if you use multiple SaaS applications, you can end up with data that doesn’t flow well between them and user interfaces that are vastly different, slowing down both users and administrators.

PaaS gives you one consistent platform from which you can run multiple software applications. This allows you to streamline things like user login and authentication and administrative tasks.

You can also save costs by having better data integration between applications. For example, you could have one single customer database that all apps you use share, rather than having each app with its own, leading to data inconsistency issues.

Review All Cloud Services & Remove Redundancies

Companies use an average of 16 different cloud applications for their business processes. Those “per user, per month” costs can add up pretty quickly if you’re using more cloud applications than you actually need.

Do a full review of the cloud applications you use and what you use them for. It’s a good idea to have an IT pro (like GEEK911!) help with this, as we often know of features for popular apps that you may not be aware of.

Look at all your apps to see if any can be eliminated and the process you use them for offloaded to another app.

When doing this cloud service review, consider:

• Add-ons that can increase the capabilities of an app
• Updates that the cloud provider may have made to add functionality
• How well an app is serving you and what your users say about it (easy to use? buggy?, etc.)
• Automation you can add to eliminate the need for an app

Use “Follow the Document” Data Security Policies

One of the time-consuming tasks of data management is trying to classify and protect sensitive documents. You may have a sensitive file protected in one application, but what happens if that file is saved to a different cloud app?

Trying to manage data security and compliance over a multiple SaaS apps is challenging and can leave you at risk of a data breach or compliance violation.

Instead, use a tool that will tag your documents with an automated security handling policy that “follows the document” wherever it goes, no matter whether the cloud service can natively recognize your tags or not.

This can be accomplished using Microsoft Cloud App Security along with a tool like sensitivity labels which applies automatic document protections based upon the label. Cloud App Security makes sure those policies stick with the document throughout your cloud infrastructure.

This significantly reduces administrative time and your data security risk.

Rethink Your Overall Cloud Strategy

We tend to get comfortable with the daily software tools we use and the thought of changing it all can be intimidating. What if it doesn’t work as well? 

But… what if it works better and costs less too?!

It pays to look at how you’re using your cloud infrastructure and re-imagine it. Could you use one platform to do what multiple cloud solutions are doing for you now?

For example, tools like Zendesk have continued adding on services over the years. Currently, the platform’s family of apps can be used for:

• A customer support helpdesk
• An internal and public FAQ
• A website chat
• A sales CRM
• A full VoIP phone system

Switching from several cloud subscriptions to just one platform that offers multiple add-on apps, not only can save you money but also improve your user experience. This can also facilitate time-saving automation, like new website leads being shared automatically with the sales team once they’re at the right stage and all customer communication trails (phone, chat, email) being saved in a single client file.

Save Money with a Cloud Application Review from GEEK911 

Our team of certified cloud experts can help you review your current cloud infrastructure, eliminate wasted money, and streamline your use of the cloud to make it better and more efficient. 

Contact us today to schedule your cloud review! Call 1-866-433-5411 or reach us online.