Cloud Savings Automation

Your monthly cloud bill can grow unexpectedly. A successful launch can quickly lead to a much higher invoice than anticipated, forcing businesses to treat rising cloud costs as an unavoidable expense.

There is a smarter way: put your savings on autopilot.

Effective cloud cost management is not about cutting back on performance. It’s about using automation to eliminate waste and ensure every dollar spent delivers value. By implementing a few key DevOps practices, you can significantly reduce your monthly cloud bill.

Here are five proven automation strategies.

1. Control Infrastructure with Code

Problem: Forgotten test servers or “shadow IT” quietly run up costs. This “resource sprawl” is a major source of wasted spending.

Solution: Use Infrastructure as Code (IaC). With tools like Terraform, your entire cloud environment is defined in code, creating a single source of truth. Every server and database is documented and tracked.

The Hack: IaC automates infrastructure setup and removal. This eliminates orphaned resources and makes it simple to tear down temporary environments, ensuring you only pay for what you actively use.

2. Shut Down Idle Resources Automatically

Problem: Development and staging environments often run 24/7, even when no one is using them overnight or on weekends.

Solution: Automate on/off schedules.

The Hack: Simple scripts can automatically shut down non-essential resources outside of business hours and restart them before the workday begins. This one change can cut development infrastructure costs by over 50% with no manual effort.

3. Implement Smart Autoscaling

Problem: Teams often over-provision resources to handle potential traffic spikes, meaning they pay for capacity they don’t always need.

Solution: Configure intelligent autoscaling that works in both directions.

The Hack: Set up automation that monitors your application’s real-time demand. It seamlessly adds resources during traffic spikes and, just as importantly, removes them when traffic subsides. This ensures you always pay for the exact capacity you need.

4. Set Up Automated Cost Alerts

Problem: A minor configuration error can cause costs to spiral, leading to a surprise bill at the end of the month.

Solution: Use automated anomaly detection.

The Hack: Configure services like AWS Cost Anomaly Detection to monitor your spending patterns. If usage deviates from the norm or exceeds a set budget, your team gets an instant alert. This shifts cost management from a reactive review to a proactive process.

 

5. Automate Instance Right-Sizing

Problem: Choosing the correct virtual machine size is difficult, and teams often select larger, more expensive instances than necessary.

Solution: Use automation to analyze your actual resource needs.

The Hack: Scripts can scan performance data to identify underused instances and recommend cheaper alternatives without impacting performance. This data also helps identify stable workloads that qualify for long-term discounts, like Reserved Instances, which can unlock savings of up to 70%.

From Wasted Spend to Smart Savings

Cloud costs don’t have to be a source of stress. By embedding these DevOps automation principles (also known as FinOps) into your operations, you can build a cost-efficient and scalable infrastructure.

At DoneDeploy, we specialize in implementing these strategies. Our effortless DevOps solutions put your cloud cost management on autopilot, so you can focus on building great products.

Ready to take control of your cloud spend? Let’s talk.