OMAHA, NE – At the recent Tech Nebraska Summit, Trility Consulting took the stage in a breakout session, "Cloud Control: Turning Cost into Competitive Advantage." Moderated by Brody Deren, Trility's Chief Strategy Officer, the session featured insights from Eric Gerling, Platform Engineering Consultant, and Jay Brummels, Principal DevSecOps Consultant, both from Trility.
The promise of cloud computing – speed, scale, and savings – often gives way to the stark reality of out-of-control expenses and unexpected complexities. Many organizations find themselves facing "bill shock" at the end of the month, a clear signal that cloud investments are spiraling. This reactive panic, as highlighted by Gerling and Brummels, is not a sustainable strategy.
Developers, excited by new technologies and services, sometimes inadvertently leave resources running, leading to significant, unmonitored expenditures.
"Reactive panic is not a strategy," emphasized Gerling. Ignoring the problem of unchecked cloud costs can have severe consequences for businesses. Beyond the immediate financial drain, it stifles innovation and slows down delivery. Without a clear understanding of where costs are being spent and for what purpose, organizations risk making inefficient decisions, such as over-reserving instances that go unused.
An over-reliance on cloud environments for basic development tasks turns expensive laptops into "fancy text editors," hindering developer efficiency and increasing time-to-market. The lack of transparency and a culture of shared financial responsibility can lead to finger-pointing and missed opportunities for optimization.
Trility Consulting took the stage in a breakout session, "Cloud Control: Turning Cost into Competitive Advantage." Pictured from the left, Brody Deren, Chief Strategy Officer, Jay Brummels, Principal DevSecOps Consultant, and Eric Gerling, Platform Engineering Consultant.
Trility's experts presented a multi-faceted approach to reclaiming control of cloud investments, focusing on proactive strategies and fostering a culture of fiduciary responsibility.
The foundational step is to gain a clear understanding of cloud spend. Brummels stressed the importance of tagging assets with relevant information like cost center, purpose, and environment. This enables organizations to allocate costs to specific teams, projects, or applications, providing visibility into consumption and allowing for informed decision-making.
A powerful mindset shift involves treating unexpected usage spikes with the same urgency as system outages. Gerling shared an example of a "war room" approach, bringing together development, project management, and leadership teams to understand the reasons behind spikes and collaboratively find solutions. This proactive communication prevents end-of-month surprises and fosters a shared sense of ownership.
Building relationships so that it's not just a job conversation, it's a, ‘Hey, we as an organization are responsible with our money so we can continue to pay you to solve problems for us.
– Eric Gerling, Platform Engineering Consultant
This is a C-suite priority, not just an engineering problem. Trility advocates for building awareness among engineering teams about the financial implications of their actions. As Gerling noted, "Building relationships so that it's not just a job conversation, it's a, ‘Hey, we as an organization are responsible with our money so we can continue to pay you to solve problems for us."
Brummels added that gamifying cost-cutting and celebrating wins can incentivize teams to find innovative ways to optimize spend.
Over-reliance on cloud resources for basic development and testing creates bottlenecks. Trility's approach encourages developers to build and test locally, leveraging the power of their workstations. This requires investing in the right tooling, platforms, and training to enable efficient local workflows, ultimately accelerating delivery cycles and reducing cloud spend.
Trility's approach has delivered tangible results. In one instance, a mid-market client achieved approximately $780,000 in annualized savings through Trility's cloud cost control methodology. This was accomplished by identifying and removing unused resources, optimizing development environments, and strategically managing log retention based on legislative requirements and access needs.
The chart above shows the drop in cost by percent from Month 1 to Month 4.
Don't wait for the monthly bill. Actively review daily cloud trends and costs using the tools provided by cloud providers. This immediate insight enables proactive conversations and adjustments.
Shift from a reactive, finger-pointing culture to one where every team member understands their role in managing cloud costs. Empower developers with information and celebrate their contributions to cost optimization.
Invest in enabling efficient local development and testing. This reduces reliance on expensive cloud resources for basic tasks, accelerating delivery and maximizing the investment in developer hardware.
Reintroduce the discipline of resource allocation. Encourage teams to thoughtfully assess their needs and avoid over-provisioning, bringing back a lost art that can significantly impact cloud spend.
Read how we helped build a cloud platform and accelerate speed-to-market for a transportation client’s customer-facing applications. They achieved better performance, improved FinOps, providing greater control over cloud resources and costs.
