In a world where there are millions of cloud resources, across multiple providers, it is easy for enterprises to get lost in their cloud invoice translation. I have seen countless cloud accounts and their invoices during my time as a developer, and they all have one thing in common, millions of rows of data. With all this data it can be difficult for enterprises to optimise their cloud spend. Enterprises often hit a roadblock when they try to interpret and understand their monthly cloud invoice because they are only seeing the high-level view, which gives organisations no understanding and no context of how the charges came to be.

Organisations want to be able to see that they are getting value for money, but now, when a cloud bill arrives, it is a challenge to even decipher the multitude of resources and instances from a single provider, let alone across multiple cloud providers. The lack of governance and financial transparency displayed by cloud vendors contributes to organisations not understanding what is being spent in the cloud, and why.

Why can’t I control my multi-cloud spending?

The cloud is supposed to be the most cost-effective way to do IT. So why does your CIO always complain that the organization has gone over budget on cloud spend again and again? The invoices you receive from Azure and AWS lack the necessary information needed to understand the “why” behind your cloud costs. Instead, you are left to sift through a sea of unstructured data that is difficult to aggregate, and even more difficult to analyse.

There are also hidden costs that you are unaware of, and individual cloud providers don’t provide the transparency needed to gain control of your cloud spend. Having one deployment doesn’t necessarily mean a singular charge, and inexperience in the cloud can often lead to incorrect instance terminations, leaving unused, costly volumes running in the background. Without governance policies, it can be difficult to determine who is running them and know when to shut them down.

In addition to all these challenges, this data is available after-the-fact, so even if you can locate underlying issues, it’s too late to act and prevent cloud overspend. Managing your organisations cloud costs is complicated, and if they are not managed correctly you will be in for a very expensive surprise at the end of the month.

Track your spending across multiple cloud providers

I have found that the biggest challenge organisations face when transitioning to the cloud, is not being able to understand what’s being spent and where. Tracking one cloud account is difficult enough. Managing more than two cloud accounts means things will probably get out of hand and cloud will lose its value. But it doesn’t have to. Cloud Analytics is integrated with three market-leading Cloud Providers, AWS, Azure and VMware, to simplify the cost control of multiple cloud resources.

With strict budget controls across all your cloud accounts, you confidently know that your cloud spend will never exceed your expectations. All resources that have been provisioned into your organisation’s cloud accounts will be consolidated into a single, easy to read invoice. There will be no more unexpected surprises.

By aggregating your cloud services, your organization will get a clearer view of what is happening across all clouds accounts. Looking at multiple cloud invoices doesn’t give you the context needed to be able to fully understand your cloud spend. The multi-cloud approach to cloud invoicing offers users the opportunity to compare their bills in one hit, with a few different segmentation methods. The enterprise will get full visibility and transparency of the total cloud spend, across all accounts, and they won’t even have to pick up a calculator.

Accurately forecast your monthly cloud spend

Cloud invoices only show you where you’ve been, not where you’re going. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to predict your cloud spend before you received your invoice? Cloud Analytics can predict future cloud spend, based on past spend, ensuring your bills are right where you expect them to be. The enterprise will be able to consistently know where they stand with their cloud bill, at any time during the month.

Forecasting will change the way you spend in cloud, enabling you to become increasingly proactive to your cloud spend, giving you more control and increased financial transparency over your cloud consumption. The sophisticated ARIMA model of forecasting will prevent the shock you will no doubt feel when you receive you cloud invoice at the end of the month. If you have been billed for a cloud resource in the past, it will be included in your forecasted spend. Forecasted spending will help keep spending on track, ensuring you can better understand why cloud spend might change over the course of the month.

Receive a single, consolidated invoice

Cloud vendors can charge users in a multitude of different currencies. AWS only charges in US dollars, regardless of where the user is located. Azure, on the other hand, charges in the currency of choice for the user. This can cause significant barriers to understanding and comparing cloud spend across multiple providers. I know how difficult it can be trying to convert all your invoices into the one currency.

To take the complexities out of exchange rate conversion, Cloud Analytics produces a consolidated invoice in a single currency. But you may be thinking, why does it matter if I’m billed in several currencies? Exchange rate fluctuations can significantly impact your cloud invoice, even if you have used exactly the same number of resources as the previous month. And on top of that, different vendors don’t always invoice users on the same day, or at the same time. With a built-in, regularly updated exchange rate calculator, you can be sure your invoice will reflect the exact costs of the day it is generated, without any hassle.

Optimise Your Multi-Cloud Spend Today

Cloud spend is unpredictable in an ever-changing environment. The success of your cloud environment will be determined by how well you manage and monitor your cloud expenditure. Buttonwood Cloud Analytics takes the complexities away from managing your cloud spend by giving you detailed daily and monthly analytics.

The Buttonwood Cloud Exchange platform offers unprecedented financial transparency and ensures predictability of cloud expenditure with our innovative cloud solutions. Analytics seamlessly integrates with both Buttonwood Cloud Broker and Buttonwood Cloud Workspace, ensuring users can optimise their cloud experience, with choice, control and governance.

If you would like to see the benefits of Cloud Analytics for yourself, sign up for a Free Trial now.