Challenge
Over the last 12 months, Form3 had been using credits direct from the cloud provider to off-set a large amount of their cloud bill. However, the nature of credits provided from the cloud providers is that this offering runs out and Form3 was in a position where their cloud costs were increasing.
To add to the complication of increasing cloud costs, Form3 were unsure of what their cloud infrastructure was likely to look like in 6-12 months time. This made it particularly difficult for Form3 to procure their cloud resources directly with the cloud providers, due to the strict finance and contractual terms. Rather, as a reseller, Strategic Blue was able to provide additional flexibility here – buying on the strict terms of the cloud provider and selling to the preferred terms of the customer (Form3).
Results
The outcome is that Strategic Blue facilitated a flexible 12-month compute commitment, allowing Form3 to change fluidly with their growth and a 6-month database commitment, unlocking savings that wouldn’t be available directly to the cloud vendor.
Thanks to the flexible commitments put in place, Form3 will be able to save circa 25% off the on-demand costs over the next 12 months. This is at a better price than going to the cloud vendors direct and with a short-term 6-month commitment for the databases that wouldn’t be possible without Strategic Blue. The plan for the next 12 months is simple, for Strategic Blue to continue to leverage as many savings as possible for Form3, whilst providing further assistance through the customisable dashboard and predictive alerting to help any overspend risk.
Solution
Through a number of meetings between Form3 and Strategic Blue, it became clear that being able to forecast their cloud usage over the next 1-3 years wasn’t something that would be possible. Instead, Strategic Blue was able to find out about the projects over the next 6-12 months and put together an appropriate commitments proposal that would give Form3 the savings they are seeking, as well as the flexibility required for their agile growth. It became clear that Form3 required a somewhat unusual committed usage length. Their compute required flexible commitments with competitive savings, whilst the databases required a short-term commitment length because Form3 is likely to turn these off in 6 months. Form3 was honest with their requirements to Strategic Blue, and this allowed Strategic Blue to use their sophisticated resell and financial intermediary to find an appropriate way for Form3 to enjoy the flexibility required with significant savings gained.