In these challenging times, many businesses from the travel sector to supply chain and retail platforms are looking to reduce costs while ensuring their actions are sustainable.

Yet when it comes to tech, the actual cloud is often overlooked as a source of emissions – and major potential savings.

“You wouldn’t leave your faucets open when you leave home, or your car running when you’re not driving it, but many businesses treat their clouds like limitless resources,” says Polar Squad DevOps consultant Katariina (Kata) Vakkuri.

A recent peer-reviewed study suggests that global emissions from ICT are as high as 3.9 per cent, exceeding the emissions of commercial aviation, which is estimated to be about 2.4 per cent.

“Perhaps the word ‘cloud’ conjures up something eco-friendly,” says Vakkuri, “but the reality is far from that. Major resources such as upkeep of buildings, heating and cooling go into keeping your data in the cloud. We need to educate people about the environmental impacts of data storage and offer viable solutions.”

DevOps solutions

Getting DevOps support pays for itself many times over, as one of its main goals is improving existing systems and structures.

“Instead of just building new systems, which is what many consultancies do, we often help to improve and optimize what already exists,” says Tero Kiminki, a senior Polar Squad DevOps consultant.

DevOps cloud optimization can save up to 10 per cent of costs a month, which can add up to a significant amount of money, according to Kiminki. Large companies’ monthly cloud costs can run to several hundred thousand euros.

One of the current challenges is that many businesses have outsourced data management and platform knowledge, says Kiminki. This means no one is responsible for staying on top of costs and sustainability issues, let alone basic management.

“As not all partners building solutions know how to get the most out of the cloud and there’s often a lack of knowledge about the cloud within an organization, the result can be non-optimal set-ups that waste time, money and the environment,” he says.  

Polar Squad to the rescue

This is where Polar Squad steps in by helping clients optimize both old and new and get back their knowledge (in the form of data).

When companies have outsourced their knowledge, it’s not always a priority for a partner to question how the system has been built. It’s easy to take shortcuts and just follow through on someone else’s orders. Polar Squad helps clients to challenge solutions set up or proposed by others that may not be optimal or even in the client’s best interests.

“We also help clients to get forgotten or lost knowledge back and raise their awareness for the future so they can utilize cost and sustainable solutions from Day One going forward,” says Kiminki.

“Knowing what you’re running in the cloud and understanding your business also frees up resources for developers, who can then focus on developing and creating new things,” he adds.

When applications are done correctly from the beginning, it reduces the need for optimization work which can take away resources from future projects. According to Erno Aapa, Polar Squad co-founder and COO, when implementing FinOps (financial operations) for managing cloud costs, “it’s important not to kill innovation, for example, by not allowing testing of new services. When there’s good communication and all the costs are visible to the teams, everyone can make better financial choices.”

You can also learn more about optimising cloud infra costs with this quick checklist we compiled with our friends at NetApp.

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If you think you might benefit from evaluating the possibilities to save costs in your cloud environment, contact us!