How is Your Cloud Usage?
Are you spending what you expected on your cloud implementation?
This really comes to light when you consider some of the newer features of SQL Server, specifically the ability to backup to the cloud and to put data files on the cloud as well. These types of things can really lead to surprising utilization of storage space in the cloud – in addition to utilization in other ways that can add up.
This doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do, it just gets you thinking that you really need to be careful and aware of what you’re using, what you[‘re doing with cloud resources.
As you move forward with different implementations – no matter the service(s) you use, do you have goals, checkpoints and following times and quantities defined? Save your sanity and determine the milestones you need to monitor as you go into the project. What do you expect storage to be? What is the growth rate? What is your bandwidth utilization and what types of things are you projecting for server growth?
These are as important to your implementations as setting up your systems and features in the first place.
I’ve worked with several people that are implementing different solutions and when they revisit expectations and… bills after the systems have been up and running, they’re surprised by their utilization. Things contribute quickly to this – the ease of adding "a quick backup location for files" and not discarding it, adding a backup copy of a disk or other piece of your infrastructure, etc.
All of this comes down to control, review and manage. Control your utilization and expectations, review your actual utilization and manage expectations, growth rates and usage. It can save dramatically on your bill, your budget and the acceptance of your solution when it comes time to share it with the boss.