As summer sets in, many businesses experience a lull, either due to a seasonal drop in customer activity or staff taking well-deserved vacations. This quieter period offers a great opportunity to optimize your cloud environment, improving internal operations and preparing your business for the future.
To begin optimizing your cloud solutions, we’ll examine its importance and outline the key areas to prioritize.
The importance of cloud optimization
Cloud optimization involves assessing, fine-tuning, and reorganizing your existing cloud environment to ensure it delivers maximum value. Think of it as decluttering a busy workspace — not just to clear space, but to make everything easier to locate, quicker to access, and more aligned with how your team actually operates. The resulting benefits include:
- Reduced operational costs: Cut out unused resources and only pay for what you really need.
- Improved performance: Guarantee faster response times and greater reliability through a streamlined environment.
- Enhanced security: Proactively address vulnerabilities with up-to-date protocols and regular system checks.
- Operational efficiency: Free up teams to focus on strategic initiatives by eliminating manual and redundant processes.
Key areas to focus on for cloud optimization
Optimizing a cloud environment of any size can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, you don’t have to tackle everything at once. Focus on a few core areas to make the process easier to manage and more impactful.
Evaluate cloud storage usage
Over time, your cloud storage can become bloated with outdated or irrelevant data. Clutter such as unused files and abandoned projects take up space, all of which cost you money and strain your systems. So, make the most of the slow season by evaluating your storage setup and optimizing your storage space.
When evaluating cloud storage usage, you must:
- Identify and remove outdated or unused files to free up storage space and reduce unnecessary spending.
- Review and adjust your current storage plan to make sure you’re only paying for what you actually use.
- Move infrequently accessed data to tiered or archival storage, where it can be compressed to save on data storage costs.
Audit and update security settings
Despite your best efforts to keep security a top priority, it’s easy for routine security updates to fall through the cracks, especially as you deal with day-to-day operations. Take the time during the off-peak season to review your cloud environment’s security and make critical improvements.
Use these questions as a guide to assess whether your security measures are up to par:
- Have I upgraded my encryption protocols to align with the latest industry standards and protect data from evolving threats?
- Is multifactor authentication (MFA) enabled for all user accounts across my cloud environment?
- Have I reviewed user access permissions to confirm that only the necessary personnel have access to sensitive data and systems?
- Have I identified and removed any inactive accounts or outdated credentials that could pose a security risk?
Assess your cloud provider
The provider that was a perfect fit when you started may no longer meet the needs of your evolving business. As your operations grow, you must regularly reassess whether your current cloud provider still meets your goals, performance expectations, and compliance requirements.
When evaluating your cloud provider, use the following criteria:
- Cost effectiveness: Whether you’re on a pay-as-you-go or subscription model, confirm you’re not overpaying for resources you don’t use.
- Scalability: If you’re facing slowdowns during peak times or struggling to add new users or services, it could signal that your cloud provider can’t scale your resources to meet your needs.
- Customer support: Swift and expert support is vital, particularly during high-pressure situations such as a system crash during peak hours. Additionally, your provider should offer tailored solutions for challenges specific to your business, not just one-size-fits-all technical help.
- Compliance: For businesses in highly regulated industries, your cloud provider must be well versed at meeting specific compliance standards, such as SOX for finance or HIPAA for healthcare.
If your current provider is falling short in any of these areas, it may be time to explore new options.
Optimize performance with automation
Automation is an effective way to boost efficiency and performance in your cloud environment. Features such as auto-scaling allow your systems to adjust server capacity in real time, scaling resources up or down based on your needs. With these and similar features, you prevent
overprovisioning and overspending.
You can also set up automated alerts for unusual usage patterns, allowing you to detect and address inefficiencies before they impact performance or budget. Together, these and other automated capabilities reduce operational overhead and free up your IT team to focus on more strategic, high-value initiatives.
Consolidate cloud platforms
Managing multiple cloud providers can lead to unnecessary complexity and added costs. Where possible, consolidate core services — such as storage, computing, and networking — under a single provider. This simplifies management and eliminates redundancies, creating a more efficient, streamlined cloud environment.
Take advantage of the summer slowdown to fine-tune your cloud environment and set the stage for more efficient operations when business picks up. For expert cloud optimization guidance and hands-on support, contact us at Liberty Center One today.