Crafting a Long-Term Cloud FinOps Strategy with AWS EDP

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As and when enterprises move towards higher cloud budgets, more resources, and longer-term commitments, the need for a proper Cloud FinOps system becomes crucial. By implementing FinOps, the organization makes sure that ‘cloud cost’ remains one of the top priorities while managing, monitoring, allocating, and forecasting cloud resource usage.

To complement these optimization efforts, cloud providers offer multiple discounts and incentive programs that help them unlock superior cost savings. AWS, in particular, has quite a few programs targeted at various types of organizations depending on their usage commitments, volumes and the like.

AWS Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) is one among the lot, tailored specifically for organizations who are scaling their businesses over the cloud and require a long-standing partnership with AWS. But there are a handful of requirements to be eligible for EDP.

Making the Most Out Of Cloud Investments

The AWS EDP takes into account the predictability and volume commitments of the customer’s cloud usage. AWS analyzes their consumption history and the discounts are used to encourage these users for longer partnerships. Hence, this program is more suitable for organizations that require a long-term commitment, could almost accurately forecast their usage needs, and would have minimal variations from these projections and commitments.

EDP applies to a variety of AWS Services and the size of the discount scales in proportion to the committed volume and term length. According to industry experts, typically, customers who qualify for EDP should have spent more than $1 Million annually on AWS services and should have a similar projection for future spending commitments. The discount increases significantly for larger annual commitments and term lengths.

Although seemingly small, the monetary savings from these discounts make a significant difference in the cloud budgets for the big spenders.

Customers who consume services exceeding the committed limit are charged at standard rates and this spending would not be accounted for future term EDP commitments. This overage charge could significantly impact their budgets.

Similarly, when the usage falls short of the commitments, they might not receive the discount benefits as expected with the plan. The leftover credits will not result in reduced billings, nor will be rolled over.

Choosing the Right Terms and Commitments

By understanding their business requirements and the right kind of AWS services needed, the organization can assemble the right set of volume and term commitments. This way, they could make sure that any deviations from the expected usage commitments are avoided.

There are a few more factors that could influence the EDP agreement, which include:

- Spend on the AWS Marketplace towards third-party listings

- Future spending projections for AWS Services or further cloud transformations

- Additional AWS cloud users in immediate association, i.e., a subsidiary

- Ability to migrate existing on-premise services to AWS

Gathering this information requires an in-depth analysis of the current cloud spending patterns, along with a collaborative effort of the Finance and Engineering teams. Quite evidently, finalizing the right EDP commitment for an organization depends on a thorough understanding of their existing cloud infrastructure and the in-outs of all the AWS offerings they have deployed.

There isn’t much information on these commitment terms and discount brackets available in the public domain. This might indicate the flexibility AWS offers in customizing the EDP program according to the needs and cloud resource usage projections of the organization. But again, without any awareness of the intricacies of this program, enterprises might find it difficult to arrive at the right set of commitments that would give them the maximum benefits.

Working with a Trusted Cloud Partner

There are many nuances that go into selecting the perfect EDP plan depending on the resource utilization, AWS service types, target platforms, AWS marketplace apps, Savings plans, SLAs, and more. With a trusted cloud partner by their side, organizations can maximize their savings from an EDP package with a minimum commitment.

Organizations like CloudKeeper, a comprehensive AWS FinOps and Cost Optimization Service Provider with 300+ customers worldwide and $100 Mn+ of savings delivered, could guide you through the program efficiently. They could bring in their years of experience with a wide range of cloud services and exclusive relationships with AWS, to steer the commitment-planning the right way ahead. This would then help the organizations to refine their EDP agreements further and choose the most appropriate plan at the best price possible.

With CloudKeeper in particular, AWS EDP programs will result in double the benefits. CloudKeeper has been working with 20+ active AWS EDP customers across various domains. With the in-depth knowledge of the EDP program and the expertise to recommend valuable considerations for requirement planning, CloudKeeper would be able to help realize the best possible commitment-discount tradeoff.

Additionally, CloudKeeper offers a one-stop FinOps solution that includes savings, software, services, and support, all bundled into one. The solution helps organizations in availing AWS services with guaranteed savings, get granular insights into their usage cost, and make improvements to their entire cloud architecture with the help of AWS-certified cloud experts.

Therefore, in addition to helping organizations grab the best EDP plans at an optimal price, CloudKeeper also helps them to track and manage their progress, thereby ensuring maximum savings from EDP.

For any organization opting for an EDP plan, it is important to have diligent planning backed by an in-depth understanding of their existing cloud resources and future requirements, before reaching out to AWS and locking in on any agreement. With an expert FinOps vendor as their ally, they could ensure the right set of commitments and a well-rounded EDP plan, helping them grab the best price, maximum discounts, shorter renewal cycles, and enough flexibility.