Navigating Cloud Costs in the Devops Sector

Skyrocketing cloud costs:  The company faced unsustainable cloud expenses, reaching $100,000 per month, driven by their reliance on Goolge cloud infrastructure for Bazel-based developer tools. Recognizing the financial strain, the leadership team began exploring cost-efficient alternatives to regain control over their budget.

To address the rising costs, the company partnered with NetActuate and transitioned to a colocation facility, investing in their own hardware. This shift provided:

• Cost control: Moving from unpredictable cloud billing to manageable colocation expenses.
• Operational independence: Gaining autonomy over their infrastructure with reduced reliance on third-party providers.
• Predictable expenses: Stabilizing monthly costs for better financial planning.

The West Coast colocation setup met operational needs and reduced costs while maintaining service quality.

The lessons: Balancing costs and strategic investments

This case illustrates the importance of combining cost-saving measures with infrastructure planning. Key takeaways include:

• Plan for geographical distribution: Avoid latency issues by aligning infrastructure with client locations.
• Invest in advanced networking: Solutions like Anycast can enhance performance for dispersed clients.
• Allocate resources for timely upgrades: Delaying critical infrastructure improvements can lead to bottlenecks.
• Strategize thoroughly: Effective planning ensures financial and technical challenges are addressed during cloud repatriation.

NetActuate’s global infrastructure and expertise in colocation, networking, and hybrid cloud solutions offered the customer a clear path to optimizing costs while maintaining performance. By leveraging NetActuate’s global presence, including diverse datacenter locations and advanced networking capabilities like Anycast, the customer was able to:

• Address latency challenges: Distribute infrastructure across key regions to ensure low-latency performance for geographically dispersed clients.
• Simplify operations: Access scalable solutions with the flexibility to expand globally while keeping costs predictable.
• Enhance resilience: Benefit from built-in redundancy, robust transit options, and carrier-neutral facilities for increased reliability.
• Stay competitive: Partnering with a provider like NetActuate ensures cutting-edge solutions without the overhead of managing complex global infrastructure.

By integrating NetActuate’s solutions, the company further streamlined its infrastructure strategy, addressing performance gaps and maintaining seamless service for its end users.

Moving to colocation with NetActuate drastically reduced our cloud costs and gave us more control over our infrastructure. We’ve achieved predictable expenses, improved performance, and now have the flexibility to scale strategically.