You’re losing valuable development time to cloud operations. Here’s why it matters and how to fix it:
Solutions:
In the UK, eight out of ten businesses have encountered unexpected cloud costs - even before factoring in the hours wasted on operational tasks by development teams. These inefficiencies often stem from routine but time-consuming responsibilities that pull developers away from their primary focus. Let’s explore some of the key culprits.
Few things derail productivity faster than an unexpected alert in the middle of the night. Without a dedicated operations team, monitoring often becomes a chaotic, reactive process. Shockingly, more than 80% of organisations lack an incident response plan, leaving developers to scramble for solutions on the fly.
A Digital Workspace survey highlights the issue: administrators spend over 20% of their time troubleshooting. Instead of focusing on proactive measures, they’re stuck resolving urgent issues. To avoid being overwhelmed by alarms, many IT teams configure monitoring tools to alert only on critical incidents. But this approach can backfire, as it often means problems are only flagged after significant damage has occurred.
The situation worsens when helpdesk teams can’t step in. 51% of helpdesk staff are unable to assist in at least half of the cases they handle, leaving developers to juggle support roles alongside their development work. This not only drains their time but also diverts their attention from creating new features or improving existing ones.
Growth should be a good thing, but for many organisations, it creates new headaches. Scaling challenges often pile onto existing inefficiencies. For instance, 70% of system downtime is caused by unbalanced workloads. When an application crashes during peak usage, it’s the developers who are tasked with firefighting.
The numbers paint a stark picture: 60% of enterprises use only 30% of their resource capacity, often due to manual scaling processes. Over-provisioning wastes money, while under-provisioning leads to outages. And the stakes are high - every 100 milliseconds of delay can reduce customer satisfaction by 7%.
Take an EdTech platform, for example. At the start of a school term, usage surges. Or imagine a SaaS tool that suddenly goes viral after media coverage. Without autoscaling, developers are forced to manually adjust resources, configure load balancers, and optimise database queries. Legacy systems only make matters worse, slowing development by up to 40%.
Performance issues are another common pain point. Nearly 50% of organisations struggle with slow data retrieval, often resorting to quick fixes like caching. Meanwhile, 90% of organisations attempting vertical scaling hit bottlenecks within six months, forcing teams to rework their infrastructure.
Cloud costs can quickly spiral out of control, turning into a time sink for development teams. As scaling inefficiencies drive up expenses, compliance requirements add yet another layer of complexity. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), unpredictable cloud costs are a major challenge, often stretching teams beyond their expertise.
Security and compliance are particularly demanding. 43% of UK businesses reported a cybersecurity breach or attack in the past year, rising to 70% for medium-sized businesses. The financial impact is significant: the average cost of a major breach ranges from £1,600 to £3,550, depending on the scale. But the time spent implementing security measures, conducting audits, and ensuring GDPR compliance is just as costly.
"If an organisation's case for public cloud migration is based primarily on savings benefits, then those in charge are in for a shock. The application modernisation necessary to realise savings from public cloud migration projects is usually much harder to achieve and takes far longer than originally anticipated."
- Vince DeLuca, Chief Executive Officer at Six Degrees
For SMBs in regulated industries like EdTech, compliance isn’t just a box to tick - it’s a necessity. Developers often handle tasks like setting up data protection measures, configuring audit logs, and managing access controls. While essential, these responsibilities don’t directly contribute to product improvements. Many organisations also lack disaster recovery plans, leaving teams to react to issues rather than prevent them.
Adding to the burden, 92% of respondents claim tech vendors fail to prioritise the mid-market’s needs. This forces internal teams to handle contract negotiations, service level agreements, and vendor evaluations - tasks that eat into time better spent on development.
All these operational demands create a vicious cycle: the more time developers spend on these tasks, the less time they have to focus on building the features that drive growth and revenue. To break free, organisations need to rethink how they handle these responsibilities, whether through automation, outsourcing, or eliminating inefficiencies altogether.
Reclaim development time and maintain reliability by embracing managed services, automation, and cloud-native strategies.
Repetitive tasks can eat up valuable time, but automation and managed services are here to help. For instance, AWS Managed Services automates 95% of its actions, handling 1.35 million AWS Systems Manager runbook activities monthly, with up to 97% triggered automatically.
Take AWS's internal operations team as an example. They used to spend about an hour on each Identity Access Management (IAM) request. By introducing automation - including a centralised IAM repository and automated validation - they cut 6,700 operational hours, achieving a 34% efficiency boost.
Managed databases like Amazon RDS or Azure Database are a great starting point. For a SaaS startup, this could mean swapping three hours of weekly database maintenance for time spent building new features. Serverless platforms, such as AWS Lambda, push this further by removing server management entirely. For example, an EdTech company running quiz apps can handle exam season traffic spikes effortlessly with Lambda's automatic scaling and pay-as-you-go billing.
Tools like Terraform and CloudFormation automate resource provisioning and configuration. Terraform works across multiple clouds, while CloudFormation handles AWS-specific setups. Configuration management tools like Ansible, Chef, and Puppet further streamline system management.
"Automating repetitive tasks or processes is an inherent part of achieving Operational Excellence" - AWS Well-Architected Framework
The secret? Adopt an "automation first" mindset. Focus on automating tasks that make the biggest difference to your team and your customers. Once operations are automated, you can shift your attention to managing costs more efficiently.
Cloud cost management can be a headache, especially when teams rely on manual tracking. With up to 32% of cloud budgets wasted, it's clear this approach isn’t the most effective.
Automated budgeting and monitoring make cost control effortless. Set monthly budgets tailored to your organisation's needs and configure alerts for anomalies instead of manually checking costs. Cost management platforms can flag unusual spending patterns, saving your team time and effort.
Right-sizing resources is another way to cut costs. Tools like AWS Compute Optimizer analyse usage patterns and suggest adjustments, potentially reducing costs by up to 25% while improving performance. Reserved Instances and Spot Instances also offer significant savings. AWS Savings Plans can cut costs by up to 70%, and Spot Instances can save up to 90% compared to On-Demand pricing. For non-production environments, Cloud AutoStopping automatically shuts down idle resources, saving up to 70%.
Real-world examples show the impact of these strategies. Tyler Technologies saved £1.2 million annually through automated cost management, while Validity reduced time spent on cost management by 90% using CloudZero's platform.
"Best practices are important, but there's no substitution for real measurement and cost optimization. Datadog Cloud Cost Management helped us attribute spend at a granular level over dozens of accounts to achieve significant savings." - Martin Amps, Stitch Fix
These cost-saving measures work hand-in-hand with cloud-native practices to further reduce operational burdens.
Cloud-native approaches simplify operations and open the door to more innovation. By leveraging the strengths of cloud platforms, teams can focus on building better products.
Microservices architecture allows teams to update specific components without disrupting the whole system. This reduces deployment complexity and operational risks compared to monolithic applications.
Containerisation solves the "it works on my machine" problem by packaging applications with all their dependencies. This ensures consistent performance across different environments and reduces the need for developer intervention in production.
Auto-scaling eliminates the hassle of manually managing capacity. Scaling policies based on metrics like CPU usage, memory, or application-specific data ensure resources adjust to demand. For instance, an e-commerce platform might scale based on active user sessions during peak shopping times, while AI-driven applications can scale GPU usage automatically.
Circuit breakers prevent one service's failure from affecting the entire system. They automatically isolate problematic services, avoiding cascading failures and reducing the need for emergency responses.
Finally, comprehensive monitoring ensures your team focuses on real issues, not false alarms. Alerting systems should highlight genuine problems rather than minor fluctuations. Readiness probes can also ensure only fully initialised services handle traffic during scaling events.
When teams no longer have to grapple with cloud operations, the benefits are both immediate and measurable. Development speeds up, costs become more predictable, and engineers can get back to doing what they love - creating and improving products instead of putting out infrastructure fires.
Cutting down on operational overhead means faster deployment times. In fact, organisations using optimised cloud systems can reduce deployment times by as much as 60 times compared to manual methods. The cloud-native application market is also booming, with projections showing it will grow from US$5.9 billion in 2023 to US$17 billion by 2028.
A great example of this transformation comes from Beam. In May 2024, they transitioned their entire infrastructure from AWS to Google Cloud without any downtime. By using tools like Cloud Run and AlloyDB, they not only halved their cloud costs but also freed up their engineers to focus entirely on developing new features rather than managing infrastructure.
Containerisation plays a big role here too, reducing deployment errors by 50–70%. This means fewer late-night emergencies and more time for planned development. On top of that, businesses leveraging cloud infrastructure experience 35% fewer unplanned outages compared to those relying on traditional on-premises systems. These improvements don’t just save time - they also help control costs.
Optimising cloud usage brings immediate financial benefits, freeing up resources for product development. Many organisations see a 20–30% reduction in cloud expenses through effective optimisation strategies. Some achieve even more by using targeted approaches.
Take, for example, a media company that implemented automation scripts to shut down idle resources during off-peak hours. This simple step cut their monthly cloud bill by approximately £15,000. Savings like these can go straight into funding new product features.
BetterCloud achieved a striking result by reducing cloud infrastructure costs from 17% to 8% of non-GAAP revenue with the help of Ternary. As Nadeem Husain, Cloud Economist at CircleCI, put it:
"We're reinvesting those savings into the company… into product, into R&D, trying to decrease our COGS".
Dieter Matzion, Senior Cloud Governance Engineer at Roku, echoed this sentiment, saying:
"If there is a new workload, it has to be funded through existing workloads being optimised".
This approach creates a positive feedback loop where cost savings directly fund innovation.
Optimising pricing models is another way to save big. Reserved Instances can cut costs by 50–70% compared to on-demand pricing, while Savings Plans can offer up to 72% savings on EC2 instances. For workloads that can handle it, spot instances can deliver discounts of up to 90%.
Cost savings don’t just improve budgets - they also allow teams to focus on innovation, which helps reduce burnout. The constant pressure of managing infrastructure alongside product development takes a toll on morale, creativity, and retention. Right now, over 65% of IT and security professionals report experiencing burnout.
One major contributor to burnout is alert fatigue. Security teams often receive thousands of alerts daily, even though fewer than 20% require action. Sorting through these alerts can take up around three hours of a team’s day, time that could be better spent on meaningful work.
Some companies are tackling this head-on. Segment, for instance, automated incident response and prioritised alerts. This reduced manual intervention and eased the on-call burden for their engineers. The result? Improved operational efficiency and happier, more engaged teams.
Devo took automation a step further in its Security Operations Centre, creating playbooks that automatically detect and respond to known threats. This freed up analysts from routine monitoring tasks, boosting both productivity and job satisfaction. Emerson also adopted robotic process automation, cutting costs and reducing repetitive tasks.
The knock-on effects for teams are huge. Companies that minimise operational distractions report a 25% increase in team productivity and effectiveness. When engineers can focus solely on product development instead of constantly switching between tasks, they deliver better-quality work and maintain deeper focus.
As Ashtutosh Yadav, Senior Data Architect, explained:
"With AWS, we've reduced our root cause analysis time by 80%, allowing us to focus on building better features instead of being bogged down by system failures".
This shift from reactive firefighting to proactive creation transforms not just how teams work but also how they feel about their jobs.
Reducing burnout has financial benefits too. High levels of stress can lead to a 50% increase in voluntary turnover, which disrupts projects and increases recruitment costs. By easing operational stress, companies can retain experienced team members who know the product and codebase inside-out, ensuring continuity and reducing the need for costly hiring cycles.
Maintaining a smooth and cost-effective cloud environment requires consistent effort. By adopting practices that prioritise operational efficiency, your team can stay focused on product development without getting bogged down by recurring issues. Here’s how to ensure long-term stability and control in your cloud operations.
Cutting cloud costs isn’t a one-and-done task - it’s an ongoing commitment. Regular audits help uncover inefficiencies in cost allocation, resource commitments, and operational workflows. Without these checks, inefficiencies can pile up, increasing costs and operational burdens over time.
These audits also provide insights into how well your FinOps practices are evolving and highlight areas where teams might need additional support. For example, you’ll want to assess:
Take Skyscanner as an example. When they decentralised cloud cost management to their engineering teams, they leveraged CloudZero to identify savings. Within just two weeks, they uncovered enough savings to cover a year’s worth of licence costs.
To make the most of these reviews, implement cost allocation and chargeback mechanisms, keep an eye on cloud usage trends, and stay informed about the latest cost-modelling tools and practices.
Even with top-notch automation and monitoring, incidents are inevitable. What sets apart a minor issue from a full-blown crisis is having a clear, well-tested incident response plan in place. This ensures that outages or performance hiccups don’t derail your team’s focus on product development.
Incident response plans need to be flexible and regularly updated to reflect changes in your cloud environment. Key steps include:
Learning from past incidents is equally important. After every event, review what worked, note areas for improvement, and track these lessons in a backlog for future action. This iterative approach ensures your response capabilities grow alongside your infrastructure.
History offers valuable lessons here. For instance, after the 2013 payment system breach affecting 41 million customers, Target enhanced its monitoring systems, segmented its networks, and set up a cyber fusion centre for faster threat response. Similarly, Maersk’s recovery from the NotPetya attack - rebuilding 4,000 servers and 45,000 PCs in just ten days - underscored the importance of having robust, adaptable plans.
Automation is a game-changer for reducing manual work and improving efficiency, but it needs regular upkeep to stay effective. As Ashish Vyas, Head of Cloud Foundation Strategy & Modernisation at TCS, explains:
"Automation is foundational for reducing human intervention and boosting operational efficiency".
The trick is to focus on automating tasks that align with your business goals, such as resource provisioning, security scans, and disaster recovery processes. Automation can even help optimise resources by identifying and decommissioning idle or outdated cloud instances.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is another essential tool. By managing infrastructure configurations through code, you ensure changes are trackable, testable, and repeatable, which supports consistency and scalability. Policy-based automation can further enforce security, compliance, and cost controls through predefined rules.
To maintain these systems, schedule monthly or quarterly cloud audits. These reviews can uncover vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and inefficiencies before they escalate into major problems.
When it comes to monitoring, choose the right approach for your needs. Agentless monitoring is efficient for large-scale environments, while agent-based monitoring provides detailed insights, especially for systems with complex network setups or those behind firewalls.
The ultimate goal? Build a system that runs smoothly with minimal human intervention while giving you full visibility into the health and performance of your infrastructure. That way, your team can stay focused on what really matters - building and improving your products.
Every moment spent on cloud operations is a moment not spent on creating and improving products. Take EVENT, for instance. When they migrated 142 servers to AWS between 2020 and 2021, they slashed their recovery time from 60 minutes to just 60 seconds. This gave their team the freedom to focus on innovation. Similarly, BMC Software moved to Amazon Aurora, which increased engineer productivity by 60–70% and cut infrastructure costs by 42%. Spacelift’s solutions helped clients like Checkout.com reduce repetitive tasks by 90% and simplify security management.
"We can scale in a heartbeat on AWS and have a level of elasticity we never had before, which is especially valuable in times of uncertainty."
– Peter Bourke, Director of IT, EVENT
These examples show the impact of rethinking cloud operations. By adopting automation and cloud-native tools, businesses aren’t just streamlining processes - they’re creating room for innovation. Companies leveraging cloud infrastructure report 35% fewer unplanned outages, and those using Kubernetes achieve a 60% faster time-to-market for new services.
The benefits are clear: faster recovery times, lower costs, and fewer outages all contribute to greater innovation. With the DevOps market projected to hit roughly £19.4 billion by 2030, and 73% of customers leaving providers after a bad experience, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Spending valuable engineering time on manual cloud tasks only puts you at a disadvantage.
By adopting strategies like Infrastructure as Code and proactive monitoring, you’re not just improving operations - you’re empowering your team to innovate, move faster, and deliver the products your customers need.
The decision is straightforward: keep firefighting operational issues or invest in systems that let your team focus on what they do best - building products that drive growth.
Developers often face burnout due to overwhelming workloads and repetitive tasks, but automation and cloud-native practices offer a way to ease the strain. By automating tasks like incident response, cost management, and monitoring, workflows become simpler, allowing developers to focus on more rewarding and strategic projects. This shift not only enhances productivity but also reduces the likelihood of errors - a common stress trigger.
Cloud-native practices add another layer of support by improving collaboration and team integration. Clearer roles and responsibilities help create a more harmonious and supportive workplace. Together, these methods enable developers to work smarter, maintain a better work-life balance, and significantly lower the chances of burnout.
Managing unpredictable cloud expenses while staying compliant can be tricky for SMBs, but there are practical ways to handle it. One key approach is adopting a cost management framework. This involves regularly monitoring cloud usage, conducting audits to spot unused or underused resources, and using tools that offer a clear breakdown of spending. Such measures help maintain control over both costs and compliance.
Another effective tactic is leveraging automation and rightsizing resources. Automated tools can adjust workloads dynamically, ensuring you only pay for what you actually use. On top of that, embracing a multi-cloud strategy can cut costs by allowing you to pick the most affordable services across different providers. This not only avoids vendor lock-in but also keeps your options open. These strategies not only help manage expenses but also provide the transparency needed to meet regulatory standards.
Regularly evaluating cloud infrastructure and incident response plans is key to running operations more efficiently and minimising risks. By spotting vulnerabilities and making better use of resources, organisations can cut operational costs by as much as 20–30%. At the same time, they can respond to incidents faster, ensuring quicker recovery and reducing the fallout from disruptions.
Taking a proactive approach to these reviews not only helps to ward off security breaches but also keeps organisations in line with regulatory requirements. It encourages a flexible mindset within teams. Plus, with fewer operational headaches to deal with, teams can channel their energy into innovation and refining their core products - ultimately boosting growth and staying ahead in the market.