With Amazon Web Services (AWS) we can now utilize applications in a manner traditional IT processes and infrastructure cannot. On the contrary, losing track of your record at a particular time is inevitable. After a billing period, you are likely to experience unexpected AWS costs. To avoid such costs, you need to understand the common mistakes you are likely to make. Relax and read on as in this article; I will discuss the significant AWS management and cost control mistakes that can strain your bank account.
AWS Cloud Benefits
According to a study by IBM, companies that broadly use AWS cloud benefit over those that don’t. With the cloud, a company can access an escape route. A company’s hustle of running and controlling the infrastructure gets replaced by fast access, and computing which expands customer reaches around the world. Michael Sheehy of CloudAcademy identifies the following AWS mistakes that organizations and people make today and affects their budgets negatively:
1. Using Many And Oversized Instances
You need to decide on the following about the instances you require:
• Size
• How many?
• How to keep track of your resources? You may need to start with a billing page found on your AWS account.
• What type? Instance types optimized for storage, computing or memory are expensive than the general versions.
Instances will cost you money if:
• Not used
• Too many get used
• Oversized instances get used.
2. A Wrong Instance Model
You can control the AWS costs by purchasing in three ways as follows:
i. On-demand instances: You get to buy at a fixed price per hour with no conditions
ii. Reserved Instances: Commitment to long-term purchases attracts hourly discounts.
iii. Spot Instances: You get to bid a price for the instance model you want.
If it’s your first time, On-Demand Instances get preferred more. On the contrary, deploying them on a sustained period can result in unexpected monthly AWS costs. A reserved instance is preferable if you plan to run your site every day for the whole year as you already know the exact cost up front. If you decide to add complex infrastructure which requires Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancers, then you will need to combine Spot and On-Demand Instances.
3. A Lot Of Snapshots
Point-in-time snapshots are taken to assist you back up volumes of data from your Amazon EBS to Amazon S3. If not saved in moderation, you get to suffer from snapshot sprawl which is very expensive. You should have a retention strategy of your EBS Snapshots in place.
According to CtrlS, the momentum of adopting cloud computing has gained and is growing exponentially. The Indian government has discovered the AWS cloud benefits and has started utilizing it in its e-governance initiatives all over the country. Since 2010, Indian manufacturers use cloud models in their studies and circles. AWS Cloud benefits have transformed Indian IT industry where 70% of the Indian Cloud market was expected to grow from 2014. The trend has picked up globally. All business sectors are expected to embrace and use cloud computing in their activities in the near future.