If your business requires a comprehensive cloud hosting solution, there’s a good chance that you’ve taken notice of the low prices offered by public cloud companies. While these prices seem really competitive on the face of things, it’s worth considering that virtually every organisation using the cloud requires a wider range of services than simple access to storage. With numerous additional costs to consider, which may be hidden in the fine print, some companies have been caught out by higher costs than initially expected.

One cost that an organisation needs to be aware of is known as ‘transactional costs’. While these fees initially seem small, they can potentially add up to a big bill if your company is fully utilising its cloud service. This blog covers the nature of transactional costs and how your business can make the most of cloud without breaking the bank.

What Transactional Costs Are Associated With Public Cloud?

While public cloud is a great choice for many organisations, you may encounter some unexpected costs along the way. A study of 250 IT managers discovered that 70% of companies who use the cloud did not understand all the costs of the services they needed to complete their work.

This is because the transactional costs associated with public cloud are sometimes not easy to establish; making it difficult to estimate your final bill. While the cost of interacting with your cloud storage might only cost a fraction of a cent, if your employees have to complete this task millions of times, this figure can rapidly add up to become a significant expense for your business.

With this in mind, it’s important to develop a keen understanding of your organisation’s needs and decide how public cloud fits into the solution.

The Cost of Monitoring

Alongside access costs, numerous other factors can increase the cost of using public cloud services. One of the most expensive is continuous monitoring – something that mayb be required to keep tabs on your organisation’s usage and ensure your bill doesn’t arrive with a big surprise. While this might not seem like a significant expense, your IT department could require specific tools to ensure they can monitor your public cloud properly. Meanwhile, you might be expected to pay for additional services to have the information available at all times. As your company might end up dedicating a far greater amount of resources to your cloud monitoring needs, you should always consider this additional cost in your budgets.

Choosing Additional Services

Public cloud will likely offer your organisation most of the services required for your team to operate at the highest possible level, but some companies end up purchasing additional services to meet their needs. Sometimes public cloud providers don’t provide a detailed service that ensures you can keep track of your consumption, audit your usage and support migration when required.

Some public cloud providers offer these additional services for an extra fee, or you can pay for third-party services or build a bespoke  solution to get total control of your cloud storage use. In addition, businesses dealing with sensitive information may choose to buy security tools to properly safeguard their data.

It’s important to have a clear understanding of these costs and more when deciding which of your workloads should into public cloud, and which might be better suited to a hybrid environment.

Ready for a better cloud?

If you’re considering  your cloud hosting solutions, 5GN Cloud Federation combines private cloud, public cloud and national data centres to give customers a comprehensive management platform. Get in touch to discover how your business will benefit from our world-class service.