5 Easy Ways To Reduce Your Azure Costs!

In today's volatile economic landscape, organisations across the globe are facing unprecedented challenges. The lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, and inflationary pressures, have created a perfect storm of economic uncertainty. This environment has forced businesses to reevaluate their operational strategies, with a sharp focus on cost optimisation and efficiency.

For many organisations, cloud computing has become an integral part of their IT infrastructure, offering scalability, flexibility, and innovation. However, as cloud adoption accelerates, so does the potential for uncontrolled costs. Microsoft Azure, one of the leading cloud platforms, provides powerful tools and services, but without proper management, expenses can quickly spiral. 

In this context, the need for judicious cost management in cloud operations has never been more critical. Organisations must strike a delicate balance between leveraging cloud capabilities to drive innovation and growth and maintaining tight control over their IT budgets. This is not just about cutting costs indiscriminately, but about optimising spend to ensure every dollar invested in cloud services delivers maximum value.

This blog post aims to address this pressing need by exploring five effective strategies to optimise costs on Microsoft Azure. By implementing these approaches, organisations can not only weather the current economic storm but also position themselves for sustainable growth in the long term. Let's dive into these cost-saving measures that can help you maximise the value of your Azure investment while keeping expenses in check.

1. Right-size Your Resources

 Regularly assess your virtual machines (VMs) and other resources to ensure they match your actual needs. Azure provides tools like Azure Advisor and Azure Cost Management to help identify underutilised resources. Consider:

- Downsizing overprovisioned VMs

- Shutting down or deleting unused resources

- Using autoscaling to adjust capacity based on demand

2. Leverage Azure Reservations

For predictable workloads, Azure Reservations can significantly reduce costs. By committing to resources for one or three years, you can save up to 72% compared to pay-as-you-go pricing. This applies to:

- Virtual Machines

- SQL Database

- Cosmos DB

- Synapse Analytics

3. Utilise Azure Hybrid Benefit

If you have existing Windows Server or SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance, use Azure Hybrid Benefit to apply these licenses to Azure VMs or Azure SQL Database. This can save up to:

- 40% on Windows Server VMs

- 55% on SQL Server VMs

- 30% on Azure SQL Database

4. Implement Proper Governance and Tagging

Establish clear governance policies and use Azure Policy to enforce them. Implement a comprehensive tagging strategy to:

- Track resource ownership

- Allocate costs to departments or projects

- Identify non-compliant or unnecessary resources

This visibility helps in making informed decisions about resource allocation and cost optimisation.

5. Optimise Data Storage and Transfer

Storage costs can accumulate quickly. Optimise your data management by:

- Using tiered storage to automatically move infrequently accessed data to cheaper storage options

- Compressing data where possible

- Using Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) to reduce data transfer costs

- Monitoring and optimising database performance to minimise resource usage

By implementing these strategies, you can significantly reduce your Azure spending while maintaining optimal performance. Regular monitoring and adjustments are key to long-term cost efficiency in the cloud. If you need help implementing any of these strategies or understanding where you should be targeting your cost saving efforts, we offer a free Azure Health Check that will make it simple, clear and concise. You can find out more here; Quantiva Azure Health Check