Top 10 Tips To Optimise Azure Costs

While cloud applications have revolutionised business operations, businesses must learn to optimise and reduce Azure costs to ensure a sustainable return on investment (ROI). 

Market forecasts illustrate that the global market size for cloud services can surpass $1.63 trillion by 2030 with Microsoft Azure being one of the top cloud service providers.

Here are some tips to help you take control of your Azure costs today and in the future. Feel free to contact our Azure consultants to learn more about how we can help you optimise Azure costs.

Understand Azure Costs 

Microsoft Azure has over 200 products and cloud services. They are designed to solve business challenges and enhance network security. Some of them include Azure Backup and Azure Files. The total cost of using the platform depends on the number and size of Azure resources being utilised. Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) must choose services aligned with goals, business objectives, and information technology (IT) requirements.

Built-In Costs Savings Options

Shifting to the cloud is a transition that requires monetary resources. Businesses can use the Azure Pricing Calculator to determine estimated costs. In addition, they can use several built-in options that can be used to optimise costs. These options include: 

• Reserved Instances – businesses receive discounts by making upfront payments for reserved instances. 
• Hybrid Benefit – organisations can use on-premises Windows or SQL server licences on the cloud. 
• Test Pricing – businesses can get discounts on services they use for development and testing. 
• Price Matching – prices are adjusted every three months to ensure they match Amazon Web Services (AWS) costs. 
• Azure Cost Management – a free tool businesses can use to plan and optimise costs and track resource consumption. 

Top 10 Tips To Optimise Azure Costs in 2023

Businesses looking to optimise Azure costs must determine which cloud resource they require. In addition, organisations must also learn to prioritise the use of such resources. Some of the best ways to optimise the cost of using Azure include: 

Gain Visibility 

Businesses must ensure that they can monitor the resources they consume and the costs that these resources incur. The best approach is to conduct full-scale cost monitoring and capture data pertaining to resource consumption from numerous applications. 

Understand Costs 

When optimising Azure costs, businesses must first understand the importance of measuring costs per unit. Such an approach can allow them to identify actionable insight that can be used to forecast costs and reduce consumption. 

Identify Unused Resources 

In addition to reducing consumption based on insights, businesses should also identify which cloud resources are idle. Once these resources have been identified, IT managers should turn them off to avoid incurring any additional costs. 

Rightsize Virtual Machines (VM)

Most businesses believe that opting for the highest-performing VM is a feasible decision. However, technological advancement allows VMs’ capacities to be adjusted as required. Therefore, businesses should ensure their VMs are set only at the required capacity. 

Use Azure Elastic Databases 

These databases allow businesses to pool and share resources throughout multiple workloads. Such an approach can help reduce costs incurred due to the fluctuating usage of each database.

Leverage Azure Advisor 

Azure Advisor is a tool that allows businesses to evaluate resource settings and usage metrics of their cloud applications. IT managers can use these tools to gain access to customised recommendations for all their cloud subscriptions. 

Know Security Best Practices 

Network security is paramount to businesses, and they are willing to allocate significant monetary resources to ensure it. However, knowing security best practices can help them reduce Azure costs incurred to ensure data protection and integrity.

Utilise Saving Plan

Azure Saving Plan allows businesses to have a flexible way of using commute services. It allows them to commit to a fixed hourly rate for a period of one to three years. Using Saving Plan allows businesses to save between 11% to 65% on computing services.

Use Azure Policy 

Azure Policy is a solution that allows businesses to develop and deploy guardrails. These guardrails can then be used to control and govern resource consumption, leading to reduced costs. 

Harness Cloud Native Applications

Cloud-native applications are those that are built specifically for the cloud. To reduce costs, businesses should ensure that most of their on-premise or third-party applications are modernised.

Final Thoughts 

Migrating to the cloud is a necessity. However, it can often lead to unbearable costs if not done correctly. Using a cloud migration checklist can help businesses ensure a seamless transition. 

However, various measures must be taken to optimise and reduce Azure costs. Get in touch with us now and learn more about how we can help ensure a seamless and cost-effective transition to the Azure cloud.

Reuben Campbell

I am a passionate System's Engineer & part-time lecturer from New Zealand, who loves going the extra mile, as seeing your work come to fruition is one of life's greatest gifts, whether with engineering projects or seeing students succeed in their studies. Although I am from New Zealand I have close friends from all over the globe, what an age we live in!