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Use Open-Source Kubecost to Understand (and Control) Kubernetes Spending

Many organizations deploying and quickly scaling Kubernetes struggle to understand how their cloud spend is actually, well, being spent. Precise visibility into which teams, projects, or applications are spending what amount on which infrastructure services is difficult to achieve. This black box of understanding has bigger implications, of course, as Kubernetes environments grow. 

(For more data on this problem, check out the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s recent – and first-ever – report into FinOps for Kubernetes.)

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5 Costly Kubernetes Traps and Their Solutions

Cost management gets complicated fast in Kubernetes, and more businesses will face this problem soon. According to Gartner, 75% of companies will be running containerized applications in production by 2022.

If you use Kubernetes on AWS, you’re probably implementing best practices to reduce your bill already. To maximize your cloud cost savings, though, you need to understand the specific challenges Kubernetes poses in cost management and optimization. Read this article to find out what they are and how to handle them.

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Understanding AWS Costs

A successful approach to AWS cost optimization starts by gaining a thorough view of the existing costs, finding potential for cost optimization, and incorporating modifications. AWS and other providers of software have resources to help clients understand how they are spending.

In this article, I'll provide a comprehensive guide on how to understand your AWS costs and needs, as a part of my AWS cost optimization series.

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What Does an AWS Cost Optimization Strategy Look Like?

How well does your company handle cloud costs? While you could have spending statistics at your disposal that will reassure you that the production team is under its monthly budget or that your monthly recurring income is on an upward trajectory, this data does not actually mean that you are handling investments in the cloud as well as you should be.

RightScale and Flexera teamed up to research the cloud spending habits of companies. What they found was that 35% or even higher of cloud spend is wasted. In times when nothing is certain and when a pandemic has taken over the world, companies are very careful with their spending. Saving the resources you normally waste on cloud spend could open new possibilities for product improvement and growth.

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7 Challenges With AWS Costs

This article is the first of my series on AWS cost optimization. In this series, I’ll introduce the challenges with AWS costs. I’ll also offer actionable recommendations on how to solve them and perform efficient AWS cost optimization.

Most businesses spend much more on processing and storage than they need. This is often the case with operating expenses for excess capacity to meet peak demand in their on-site data centers.

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How to Achieve Effective Kubernetes Cost Optimization

Kubernetes is ruling the container market. According to a CNCF survey, the use of Kubernetes in production in 2020 was 93%, up from 78% in 2019. Moreover, the survey reveals that the use of containers in production in 2020 was 92%. This figure is up 300% from CNCF’s first survey in 2016. 

Due to the adoption of Kubernetes by DevOps teams and the open source community’s encouragement, this figure could grow more. And if it stays at present prices, this market share still is a significant portion. This means that even though Kubernetes makes a lot of things easier, challenges will always appear, as the survey confirms. Namely, the problems listed include networking, storage, tracking, surveillance, a lack of preparation, and, of course, cost management.

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Cost Optimization on AWS EKS Clusters

Containerization and modern cloud infrastructure have made it possible to deploy even the most complex applications without making big initial investments. With most cloud computing models, you pay fixed fees only for the resources you use, and you are all set. Scaling up (and down) becomes easier too since you are not actually investing in the physical hardware supporting the cloud cluster.

While the available services certainly make cloud computing more accessible, they still could cost a lot, especially when the cost of using cloud resources is not managed properly. It is easy to fall into the trap of buying into more resources that are not fully utilized and ending up paying more than you should.

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Cloud Cost Optimization for 2019

Practically everything runs in the cloud these days. Cloud technology and the multiple platforms available today certainly make running apps and web services in the cloud easier. At the same time, cloud infrastructure has new features that expand its capabilities, including deployment features like containers and advanced administrative tools.

It is relatively easy to set up a capable cloud environment for any app or service. The real challenge is creating an environment that is both effective and efficient, especially in terms of setup and running costs. With the New Year already moving quickly, every business is no doubt looking for ways to run smoother and more economically. Thankfully, cloud cost optimization can be done in many different ways across multiple services.