Cloudability - Optimization

What Is Optimization in Cloudability?

Cloudability aggregates usage data from all connected cloud accounts and applies analytics to detect:

• Underutilized resources

• Oversized instances or VMs

• Idle or rarely used services

• Opportunities to reduce cost through cloud provider commitment programs

• This data is found in the Optimize section in the left navigation bar in Cloudability

Rightsizing Recommendations

Rightsizing recommendations identify compute resources where usage does not match the allocated size. Cloudability reviews CPU, memory, network, and I/O trends to determine whether a resource could be rightsized

Common Rightsizing Opportunities

• AWS EC2 instances

• Azure Virtual Machines

• GCP Compute Engine VMs

• Databases (RDS, Cloud SQL, Azure SQL)

Why It Matters

Rightsizing reduces cloud costs without impacting performance by ensuring resources match actual usage

What You Can See

Rightsizing pages include:

• Current instance size

• Recommended target size

• Estimated monthly savings

• CPU / memory utilization charts

• Risk level of the recommendation

Rightsizing

• Clicking on Rightsizing in the left navigation bar take you to a chart that shows potential savings,  you can edit the dimensions and reorder them by dragging to change the chart

• If you click on of the colored bars and then click View Recommendations those will show up in a table below the chart

• Then click on the three dots at the end of the row you would like know more about and click View Details

• This will bring up a window with the recommendation and metrics of that machine

• Review the recommendation and notify stakeholders and test before implementing changes

Tracking Rightsizing ROI

• UW-Madison would like to track the savings that we realize using Cloudability to ensure that we're getting a good return on investment from our Cloudability purchase. We ask that users document cost savings operations using Cloudability's issue tracker.
• Once you decide to rightsize or terminate an instance click on the three dots and select create a Cloudability issue from the rightsizing recommendation page above
• 
• Select the project if you are in DoIT please select DoIT if you are not please create a new project, Select the assignee, the person who will do the work, if you want to notify them via email and click create ticket
• Once created you should see the ticket in Rightsizing ROI
• Click on Details to see the action to take, change status, and add or change assignee
• Before doing anything in the console make sure with the account owner and stakeholders that the termination or rightsizing of the resource is okay, if terminating back up and data before if needed
• To perform a terminate action login to the account and then terminate the instance 
• To perform a rightsize action login to the account stop the instance, once stopped change the instance type, once changed restart instance and test
• Once the terminate or rightsize action is done make sure to set the status of the ticket to done

Commitment Recommendations

Commitment recommendations help users reduce cloud costs by purchasing compute commitments such as:

• AWS Savings Plans

• AWS Reserved Instances

• Azure Reservations

• GCP Committed Use Discounts (CUDs)

Cloudability analyzes resource usage trends and recommends optimal commitment levels that balance cost savings and risk.

What Cloudability Evaluates

• Historical compute usage

• Resource stability

• Multi-account spend patterns

• Break-even points for 1-year or 3-year terms

• On-demand vs. reserved cost comparison

What You’ll See

• Recommended commitment amount ($/hour or vCPU/hour)

• Projected annual savings

• Recommended term length

• Vendor-specific commitment categories

Why Commitments Are Important

Commitments provide significant discounts over on-demand pricing. Steady, predictable compute workloads benefit the most.

How to make a commitment purchase

Work with the cloud team to make this purchase by contacting cloud-services@cio.wisc.edu

With the details of the commitment you would like to purchase, your account id, and making sure you already have rightsized the instances in your account

Best Practices

• Review rightsizing recommendations monthly

• Validate compute usage with system owners before resizing

• Rightsize first before purchasing commitments 

• Avoid over-committing, reserve only what is stable and predictable

• Coordinate commitment purchases with DoIT Cloud Services team