ParkMyCloud has announced the launch of a new service to help businesses cut back on their cloud costs and avoid paying for cloud instances that are not in use.
The latest release of the ParkMyCloud platform, termed SmartParking, is an automated cloud cost optimization tool that helps businesses turn off cloud instances – and avoid paying for them – when they are not being used.
SmartParking looks at cloud utilization data drawn from AWS CloudWatch, and based on typical usage, will suggest a schedule for turning off each cloud instance based on actual usage data.
ParkMyCloud is not the only cloud management vendor, but the latest release takes cost optimization a step further than its competitors, adding an additional layer of cost optimization based on real data. “No other cloud management vendor is doing this,” said ParkMyCloud CTO Bill Supernor.
The evidence-based scheduling helps companies maximize their cost savings, cut back on employee hours spent managing cloud usage, and ensures cloud instances are available when they are needed and are turned off when they are not.
Companies looking to shave as much as possible from their cloud expenditure can set SmartParking at the ‘aggressive’ level, where schedules are suggested that truly maximize cost savings. Setting SmartParking to ‘conservative’ will see all historic use of cloud instances, and times, factored in and protected. The ‘balanced’ setting provides an intermediate between the two.
Currently SmartParking has only been made available for AWS resources, although ParkMyCloud is developing the service and will be releasing support for Azure and Google Cloud in the near future.
Recently, ParkMyCloud partnered with CloudHealth Technologies, the leading provider of cloud management services. The partnership will see customers that use the integrated solution get a much better return on their cloud investment, reducing the man-hours committed to managing cloud resources while also saving costs through cloud parking. By making cloud management easier, management time is reduced, and staff can devote their time to more strategic projects.
“There are huge business gains to be reaped in the public cloud, but business transformation also brings complexity,” said Tom Axbey, CEO and President of CloudHealth Technologies. “In partnering with ParkMyCloud, we’re eliminating cloud management inefficiency and bridging the divide between cost and utilization. We’re uniting disparate cloud environments, business ops and DevOps teams by equipping them with the tools they need to be agile and productive.”
