Cost Management in Cloud Computing Questions and Answers for Viva

Answer-1: Cost management involves monitoring, controlling, and optimizing cloud spending to ensure efficient use of resources and budgets.

Answer-2: Because cloud resources are pay-as-you-go, without cost management, expenses can quickly spiral out of control.

Answer-3: Over-provisioning, unused resources, data transfer costs, lack of monitoring, and inefficient resource usage.

Answer-4: AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, Google Cloud Billing Reports, CloudHealth, Cloudability.

Answer-5: Reserved instances provide discounted pricing in exchange for committing to use resources over a fixed period.

Answer-6: On-demand instances are pay-as-you-go with no commitment, while reserved instances require upfront commitment for lower costs.

Answer-7: Tagging helps track costs by assigning metadata to resources for better allocation and accountability.

Answer-8: Auto-scaling adjusts resources dynamically based on demand, preventing over-provisioning and reducing waste.

Answer-9: A report that breaks down cloud costs by project, department, or team to identify spending patterns.

Answer-10: It involves analyzing usage, rightsizing resources, eliminating waste, and using pricing models effectively.

Answer-11: A notification triggered when cloud spending approaches or exceeds a predefined budget limit.

Answer-12: Idle resources consume costs without providing value; identifying them helps reduce waste.

Answer-13: By matching resource capacity to actual workload requirements, avoiding under or over-provisioning.

Answer-14: Spot instances use unused cloud capacity at a steep discount but can be interrupted anytime.

Answer-15: Policies and processes to control cloud spending and enforce budgeting and cost management rules.

Answer-16: Data transfer between regions or out of the cloud can incur significant charges if not managed properly.

Answer-17: A pricing model where you pay only for the cloud resources you consume, without upfront commitments.

Answer-18: Free tiers provide limited resources at no cost, useful for testing but can lead to unexpected charges if limits are exceeded.

Answer-19: Dashboards visualize cost data for easier tracking, analysis, and decision-making.

Answer-20: Snapshots consume storage and incur charges; removing unnecessary ones lowers storage costs.

Answer-21: Over-provisioning leads to paying for more resources than needed, increasing costs unnecessarily.

Answer-22: Unexpected spikes or irregularities in cloud spending that may indicate misconfigurations or security issues.

Answer-23: They offer native tools for cost tracking, budgeting, forecasting, and resource optimization.

Answer-24: Price is what you pay per resource unit; cost is the total expenditure including usage, overhead, and inefficiencies.

Answer-25: Multi-cloud can increase complexity in cost tracking and optimization due to different pricing models and tools.

Answer-26: Predicting future cloud spending based on historical usage and growth trends.

Answer-27: Licensing for software running in the cloud adds to overall costs and must be managed carefully.

Answer-28: A specific business unit or project responsible for cloud expenses.

Answer-29: Elasticity allows scaling resources up or down automatically to meet demand without excess provisioning.

Answer-30: Regularly review bills, use tagging, implement budgets, rightsize resources, automate shutdowns, and leverage discounts.

Answer-31: Different storage classes (e.g., standard, cold storage) have varying costs and access speeds.

Answer-32: Automation can schedule resource shutdowns, enforce policies, and optimize provisioning to reduce costs.

Answer-33: Providing clear visibility into who is spending what and where, enabling accountability.

Answer-34: Multi-tenancy can complicate cost tracking as resources are shared among multiple users or customers.

Answer-35: Cost policies define rules for resource usage, spending limits, and approval workflows.

Answer-36: Using automation and governance tools to ensure all resources have consistent and correct tags.

Answer-37: It helps detect anomalies early and prevents unexpected charges.

Answer-38: Reserved instances are fixed for specific instance types and regions, while savings plans offer more flexible discounts based on usage.

Answer-39: Serverless charges only for actual usage, reducing costs compared to always-on servers.

Answer-40: Use limited resources, schedule shutdowns, and leverage free tiers or lower-cost options.

Answer-41: The ability to see detailed breakdowns of cloud spending across services, teams, and projects.

Answer-42: They provide historical data and trends that inform accurate budget planning.

Answer-43: Tagging allows organizations to allocate costs back to departments or projects for accountability.

Answer-44: Through APIs and automation, enabling cost control as part of deployment and operations.

Answer-45: Complex pricing models, dynamic usage, lack of standardization, and difficulty in forecasting.

Answer-46: Private clouds may have fixed costs, while public clouds have variable pay-as-you-go expenses.

Answer-47: It automatically identifies unusual spending patterns to prevent bill shock.

Answer-48: Using monitoring data and AI/ML tools to suggest optimal resource sizes.

Answer-49: It leads to unnecessary costs as resources continue to incur charges.

Answer-50: By setting policies, monitoring usage, enforcing tagging, training teams, and using cost management tools.