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How to Deal with Underutilized Instances: Binadox Solutions

How to Deal with Underutilized Instances: Binadox Solutions

~5 minutes read

When forming the initial IT budget, companies usually start to conduct an inventory of the current assets, as well as research the market of cloud vendors, exploring the cost of the services and resources they offer. This is required in order to choose the cloud services that satisfy current needs in IT, also, match the workload, and fit within the amount of money that can be spent on it. After that, organizations decide what resources are exactly needed and in what sizes.

However, even in the case of such a thorough examination, it’s a common situation when companies waste their budget on the resources they once purchased but never used or the resources that should be used to the maximum but aren’t – overprovisioned ones.

In this article, we have decided to drive particular attention to underutilized instances as they present a pain point for many companies that deploy multi-cloud architecture. In this type of cloud, it’s more difficult to provide total visibility of the resources utilization rates and their costs. Moreover, it’s beyond easy to leave such instances unnoticed.

What are Underutilized Instances?

Underutilized instances are wasteful resources that weren’t purchased in the right size and companies continue to pay for the number of resources that aren’t used as much as possible.

On the other hand, these resources can be considered as ones that matched the past consumption volume at the moment of purchase but are not relevant to the current consumption. For instance, the company buys the needed number of resources for the usual workload, however, during Black Friday, the traffic rapidly increases. It causes a lack of computing power and significant latency. As a result, the company ends up with a huge loss of customers and money.

How to Solve the Problem of Underutilized Instances?

If you have already worked with some cloud providers, for instance, AWS, Azure, or GCP, you have probably examined the optimization practices and could’ve heard about “rightsizing”.

Rightsizing is a useful practice that can help eliminate underutilized instances. It’s essential to keep in mind that there are 3 steps that should be completed before you start rightsizing: first of all, you need to identify such instances; then collect the data on their utilization and analyze the consumption rates; and only after that initiate the rightsizing process.

Let’s now consider these 3 steps in a more detailed way.

Gain total visibility

This is the initial step taken in order to stop wasting financial resources on instances that are not used as they could’ve been used. To track such instances you need to have total visibility of cloud utilization volume and costs.

Visibility facilities monitoring processes in your cloud. It matters a lot especially within multi-cloud architecture which has no ready-to-use unified monitoring solution due to the abundance of possibilities. It is more challenging to get the whole and clear picture of multiple resources utilization and cost.

Each cloud vendor has its own monitoring tool, however, in the case of multi-cloud or hybrid cloud, native tools are not sufficient enough for making balanced decisions. This is what cloud management platforms were created for. They allow users to manage their cloud resources and costs and it all can be done in one place.

Analyze consumption rates

The next step is to have a clear picture of past utilization rates. It helps to understand how much resources are used on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis.

Additionally, a wise strategic move is to consider a possible future change of workload due to special occasions, for instance, Christmas or New Year. Here is why: the traffic is a very tricky thing. It’s highly flexible, so it can increase, as well as decrease, depending on the various factors like season, for instance.

Rightsize

Last but not least – rightsizing. It is one of the most effective steps in cloud cost optimization, as it allows companies to use the cloud resources they are paying for, as much as possible.

At this stage, companies should take advantage of the discovered performance and cost metrics to have the rightsizing process done. Notice that rightsizing does not necessarily mean downsizing, sometimes upsizing is also an option, depending on the case.

How Binadox Deals with Underutilized Instances

Using third-party tools as Binadox or Cloudcheckr can simplify the daunting task of collecting the required information and monitoring. You need just to connect cloud accounts that you use and all the meaningful performance and cost data will be fetched into the unified dashboard. Then the system will automatically form rightsizing recommendations for you based on collected data and set workload.

Let’s dive deeper into the way Binadox does rightsizing step by step.

Step 1 – Identify

To understand what exactly you should rightsize, you need a monitoring tool that will reveal the consumption rates of multiple resources across the multi-cloud architecture in one place – a unified dashboard, which contains all the necessary cross-platform information.

Binadox provides visibility by the dashboard that collects all the relevant data on the cloud environment utilization and cost. Binadox Cloud Utilization Dashboard helps companies to manage various cloud resources, control their costs, continuously check security and compliance, and arrange operational processes wisely.

Step 2 – Analyze

To wisely manage your multi-cloud infrastructure you need to think strategically and keep in mind the possible change in workload (which you can set manually in the Binadox Rightsizing section).

The Cloud Cost Explorer section will give you a detailed consumption breakdown for all of your cloud accounts within your cloud architecture, whether it’s hybrid or multi-cloud one. With this feature, you can explore cost spikes and anomalies for a better understanding of possible workload changes that will facilitate more accurate forecasting and planning.

Step 3 – Rightsize

Using the Binadox platform for Rightsizing allows users to set the needed workload manually, as was mentioned above. Once this is done, the platform will start analyzing the current situation and will suggest all the possible ways of asset optimization.

Not only will you be able to see the whole consumption trends and costs for your cloud but also the new recommended instances sizes and their cost.

Once the recommendation is ready you can send it to your IT team to the connected communication channel like Slack or Skype for making a decision on the required action.

Getting started with Binadox

Now it’s time to see the Binadox platform in action. Register for a free trial and see how Rightsizing works for improving your company’s efficiency and helps to stay on budget.

Start enjoying your new cloud journey TODAY.

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Shared Responsibility Model for Cloud Security

Shared Responsibility Model for Cloud Security

~5 minutes read

Cloud security

Security is one of the top priorities for every organization. Back in the day when companies deployed on-premises software, they were more or less sure that their data was secured as it was fully governed by their own efforts. Nowadays, when migrating to cloud computing, many organizations have concerns about security threats and data breaches, as they are not in the whole and total control of the infrastructure anymore.

In these terms, such cloud providers as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure did their best to convince their users that there is nothing to worry about – provided security is sufficient enough and, in some sense, even more reliable.

Nevertheless, to state that and stay brutally honest with their customers, it was crucial to demarcate security-related responsibilities and articulate who is in charge of what. That is how the Shared Responsibility Model appeared.

What is the Shared Responsibility Model?

To start with, security responsibilities are divided between the organization and the cloud service provider. So a reasonable question arises: “Who is responsible for what according to the shared responsibility model?”

The answer is:

The cloud provider is responsible for the security of the cloud, while the company is responsible for security in the cloud.

Cloud Security The Shared Responsibility Model

So, a cloud provider takes the responsibility of making sure the infrastructure within its platform is built securely and reliably. They protect their servers from intrusion through a variety of protocols, they also offer backup, restore, and disaster recovery solutions. On the other side, the company, as the end-user, is responsible for managing the application, credentials safety, and encryption.

Enterprises and cloud providers – Working as a team

To create a secure cloud environment, the obligations should be taken seriously by both sides: if one of the parties neglects its part of the deal, there definitely will be consequences.

First of all, it’s important to understand exactly where the boundary between the responsibility of the cloud provider and the company is. It would be easier if there were a standard list of the obligations that every cloud provider has to take. Since there is no such set of rules, some misunderstandings may occur.

To not let that happen, companies should thoroughly examine what the cloud providers are taking care of and what stands outside of their liability area. For example, AWS takes the responsibility of protecting software, hardware, and networks, while Azure is mostly responsible for data centers, physical hosts, and networking.

End-users or companies are in charge of cloud platform configuration, information and data security, and IAM (identity and access management).

Additionally, the level of obligation can vary according to what the organization uses: on-premises software, IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS.

The difference between on-premises, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS

As Gartner claims, the vast majority of cloud security threats occur due to the end-users negligence, for example, sharing access with someone through an untrustworthy channel of communication or forgetting to log out of their account when using somebody’s computer. Users are responsible for keeping data secure and ensuring that the cloud providers they engage with meet all security and compliance requirements.

Why cloud security is important

Providing security of the cloud and security in the cloud is vital as even the smallest, at the first sight, omission can lead to serious problems. For instance, sensitive data loss can entail huge financial penalties from authorized organizations, or hurting business goodwill will definitely undermine trust in a company forever.

That is why it’s highly recommended to scrutinize what exactly you need to protect, what are the possible threats and how to ensure the required level of security.

In the abstract below we have collected some of the most frequent security threats and matched them with the best practices addressed to resolve problems associated with them.

Main security concerns and how to solve them

1. Network security

Concern: The rising number of endpoints, as well as their diversification, make the providing security task a lot more complex than it was before. We can also add here the fact that a lot of employees use their own devices and, in the era of the pandemic, – work remotely. Not a surprise that it makes the protection perimeter rather insufficient and as a consequence creates vulnerabilities.

Besides, hackers are getting more and more skilled and creative in finding new ways to gain access and getting sensitive information which can ruin years of hard work.

Solution: There are many things to consider in pursuit of providing network security but below we have listed main security tools and techniques to focus on right now:

Access control. The company should constantly work on preventing unauthorized access and place zero trust in authorized users as well as you never know where the potential threat can come from.
Anti-malware software. Antivirus software can come in handy when it’s required to protect devices from viruses, worms, different keyloggers, and spyware as well as to reduce the damage to the network.
Firewalls and Endpoint security. A firewall is one of the ways to protect the network. It allows or denies access to the data by monitoring both incoming and outgoing traffic. Endpoint security helps organizations to protect the data on the company’s devices. It also can serve as a monitoring tool that simplifies the analysis of work done by each employee in the company.
Network segmentation. This tool allows access to the right traffic and cuts off traffic from untrustworthy sources. It’s a sensible practice as each kind of network traffic can be the reason for various security risks.

2. Authorization and Authentication

Let’s, first of all, clarify the difference between authorization and authentication.

Authorization is when the server analyzes whether the user has access to data and permission to use it or not.
Authentication is when the server needs to determine who exactly is trying to access the information, application, or site.

Concern: Access to cloud computing is carried out remotely, through the public Internet. While it simplifies the accessibility for team members or customers, it also increases the risk of unauthorized access to the company’s cloud resources. Security misconfigurations or credentials leakage may lead to this type of security issue.

Solution: Consider using services that offer identity recognition and access management features. It would also be beneficial to establish basic security policies for workers as:

Strong password policy, which requires all the team members to create long, solid passwords and change them regularly.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) imply sign-in confirmation via the user’s personal device or with the help of the user’s fingerprint or voice.
Taking physical security seriously. It means that credentials shouldn’t be written down somewhere, people can easily get access to… like a notebook on the desk. Locking office doors is one of the practices too, even if it seems obvious or not important.

The usage of several authentication practices is great, however, using the weak ones leads to trouble with cloud security. It’s crucial to authenticate through secure channels only in order to not fall into the trap of interception. The usage of channels like email or phone is strongly discouraged.

3. Data encryption

Concern: When the data is transferred to the client or server, such sensitive information like social security numbers, personal credit card numbers, and residential addresses can be leaked over the Internet and, in the worst-case scenario, intercepted during transit. It’s unwise and irresponsible to store sensitive data without any enhanced protective measures taken.

Solution: Implement encryption. For providing reliable encryption a company should create unique keys for every service and implement access restrictions according to the principle of least privilege. Permissions of the keys should be limited. One more point – keys should be updated regularly to be sure that even privileged users can’t compromise them and get full access to the company’s sensitive data.

Another point to be mentioned – businesses should control encryption keys. A company can give cloud providers access to the keys, but it doesn’t mean, in any case, that the responsibility for data safety lies on the vendors – the company itself is still the one who is in charge of safety maintenance.

4. Industry regulations compliance

Concern: Nowadays data is the most valuable asset a company possesses. Losing it or providing anyone with unwanted access to that data puts the whole company in danger of losing credibility, goodwill, and money. Particular laws and regulations make companies take their data privacy seriously as it affects personal privacy and security.

When talking about regulations – they depend on the industry. For example, the US government agencies have to comply with FISMA, while HIPAA is the regulation required for healthcare organizations. In case when a company violates outlined policies related to it corresponding fines and penalties will be imposed.

Solution: Compliance and security should go hand in hand. It’s more convenient and safer to work with a cloud provider who follows industry best practices to ensure security within the cloud infrastructure. Furthermore, the presence of a recognized certification is one more benefit for the organization.

To ensure your compliance efforts are both cost-effective and efficient, the cloud service provider should offer you the ability to inherit their security controls into your compliance and certification programs.

5. Flexibility and control

Concern: Many companies prefer multi-cloud architecture, so providing cloud security becomes even more complicated – it’s easy to overlook some misconfigurations or data leakage. The most disappointing factor is that the security threat can remain unnoticed by the IT department for a long time which is a total disaster for any organization.

Solution: Deployment of a cloud management platform is a good way to get total visibility of all used IT assets within the cloud, optimize the cost for cloud services’ resources, and monitor compliance policies.

Binadox is a good example of a tool that keeps businesses aware of the current compliance policy state apart from providing businesses with features for monitoring and managing numerous cloud resources. You can register for a FREE 14-day trial and experience its benefits.

Summing up

Creating a security strategy is an essential aspect when migrating to the cloud and its importance is not diminishing throughout the time of cloud services exploitation. In general, security provision is based on 3 pillars: protect, detect and respond.

Choosing the right provider will reduce the majority of risks related to the basic security of the cloud. Once a company learns how to successfully execute the developed security strategy which includes the best practices, policies, and tools, its business processes will improve significantly.

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What is Scalability in Cloud Computing?

What is Scalability in Cloud Computing?

~5 minutes read

Scalability definition

Today more and more companies consider migrating to the cloud and scalability is one of the main reasons. What’s scalability in cloud computing?

Scalability is the possibility of increasing or decreasing IT resources. Back in the day, for companies with on-premise data centers, scaling was a daunting task: business owners needed not only to buy new hardware, which would cost a fortune but order it and wait for equipment arrival for weeks or even months. Moreover, IT engineers spent hours installing new hardware to the system.

There is a common misconception that resources can be only scaled up. Demand is constantly changing and downtime may occur as well, even if the company does its best to stay on top of its efficiency. Traffic fluctuations appear seasonally, weekly, and even hourly depending on the type of the business. Holidays or special occasions like Black Friday or Christmas increase the workload and consequently the necessity of additional resources.

Still, all the occasion-sensitive traffic has a tendency to decrease and that would be devastating for companies to pay for those used at the peak resources the whole time, although they didn’t use them much during the rest of the year.

Scaling problems

The main rule companies should follow – demand should always match supply. When demand increases and there is a lack of resources, performance errors may occur. It leads to unpleasant situations when users get locked out of the application. It’s a total disaster for any business. Otherwise, when there is almost no demand and a lot of resources, the budget goes out of the window.

How to solve problems related to scalability? The usage of the cloud simplified the scaling process manyfold. However, it’s not Aladdin’s lamp that makes all your dreams come true and solves all of your issues. There are still some factors to consider and scaling all parts of your application (like storage or database) is one of them. It’s important to remember that the scaling process is like putting together a puzzle – you need to pay attention to every piece of it.

Cloud scaling strategies

It’s clear that scaling is significant, so now let’s talk about the options. There are two types of scaling: vertical and horizontal.

Cloud vertical scaling implies adding resources to an existing server or replacing a server with a more powerful one. The process of vertical scaling is also known as scaling up and down. Vertical scaling in AWS or Azure can be performed by instance rightsizing, buying a new instance, or eliminating the old one.
Horizontal scaling in the cloud deals with the distribution of the workload. It means the company buys additional servers to balance the occurring volume of requests among them. In official terminology, horizontal scaling is known as scaling in or out.

Vertical and horizontal scaling in cloud computing

Most businesses prefer cloud horizontal scaling because when performing the vertical one, the application is not available for users for some time, even if we’re talking about scaling within the cloud environment. Moreover, it’s easier to scale horizontally in the case of automation.

How to scale cloud

There are three ways to scale in cloud computing. Let’s take a close look at them.

Manual scaling means that an engineer manages the scaling process all by himself, no matter vertical or horizontal. It’s not a demanding task to hit the key on a computer for any type of scaling but it still requires great precision and concentration. It is time-consuming and human errors can not be excluded. Some of these errors are not critical but some can cost your company an arm and a leg.
Scheduled scaling is easier to perform than the manual one. Scheduling is performed according to the demand changes. The majority of companies don’t need all of their instances to work 24/7 at the fullest capacity. For instance, a company can scale out to 20 instances from 10 am to 7 pm while the whole team works diligently, and scale into 5 instances from 8 pm to 9 am when there is less workload needed.
Automatic scaling or cloud auto scaling implies taking the necessary actions based on a set of predefined rules created for multiple resources. Once the specified utilization threshold is crossed, the required action is triggered. In other words, the system detects anomalies and responds immediately – scales up, down, out, or in. It allows your IT department to work on the other tasks, ensures the application work without interruption, and provides better cost optimization.

Manual, scheduled and automatic scaling in cloud computing

Scaling and cost management

In order to optimize cloud costs and at the same time not affect the performance, the company can rightsize instances or purchase Reserved Instances (Rls). It’s crucial to pay attention to is that rightsizing allows you to scale, while Rls don’t, because of commitment to use a certain amount and type of resources for several years.

So while looking for the best cloud cost optimization practices, companies have to choose whether to have the opportunity to scale at any time or get discounts when purchasing Rls. To do that, profound research of current and past utilization volume should be done in the first place.

Cloud cost optimization tool

Applying a cloud scaling strategy shouldn’t be painful. Cloud management platforms like Binadox give you the opportunity to manage a single or multi-cloud environment effectively as its features provide total visibility of cloud resources and costs. Binadox also has a recommendation system that suggests several alternatives for various problems.

Start Binadox free trial today and enjoy all the benefits of cloud management.

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Hybrid Cloud vs. Multi-Cloud

Hybrid Cloud vs. Multi-Cloud

~5 minutes read

Sooner or later business owners start wondering if one cloud platform is enough for their company. As it is often discovered, utilization of only one cloud platform is not giving as many exploiting or money-saving possibilities as desired.

That is why nowadays multiple cloud deployment has become more popular. There are two approaches to reconcile clouds in one environment: the multi-cloud approach which allows interconnecting public cloud platforms with one another; and the hybrid cloud which combines public cloud with private cloud or on-premise servers.

How can a company decide which strategy is best for operations and business in general? In this article, we explain what stands behind hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies and drive your attention to aspects you need to consider while choosing between them.

Cloud environment types

First of all, let’s talk about the basics. As far as you might already know there are two cloud platform types: public and private.

Public cloud is a cloud computing infrastructure that’s delivered remotely and shared across different organizations through a self-service interface. The most popular public cloud providers are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). A public cloud might be the simplest of all clouds in terms of deployment. In case a client feels a need for more resources or services, he or she just pays a public cloud provider for another hour or byte used.

Private cloud is a single-tenant environment which means that the organization using it does not share any resources with other users. Private clouds are often preferred by businesses and government agencies that go for having direct control of underlying cloud infrastructure. It is possible to send a request to the IT department for architecting the platform, as well as buying it from a third-party vendor and locate the data center resources off-site or on-premise.

Business owners have many reasons to choose either public cloud, private cloud, or a combination of two cloud setups. For instance, public cloud platforms allow users to not only store but also analyze their data, while private cloud is safer, as many believe. However, data breaches and other security issues may occur within both cloud environments.

Multi-cloud vs. hybrid cloud

Compliance, management, and security requirements are getting more complex every day. Cloud technology develops correspondingly to let organizations interconnect their platforms faster and what is more – easier.

Some companies choose not to deploy multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud architecture, despite all the benefits it offers, due to the difficulty of monitoring and managing costs across several cloud platforms. Fortunately, cloud management platforms like Binadox provide business owners with total visibility and proper cost allocation of all the assets used within the company.

According to what is combined, there are two types of organizing cloud platform operation: multi-cloud and hybrid cloud. Let’s find out what is the difference between them.

Multi-cloud

A company definitely can use one cloud platform, but a multi-cloud solution offers a good opportunity to balance the workload across several cloud services. A multi-cloud environment implies the use of two or more cloud platforms of the same type, usually the public ones. The usage of private clouds is also possible but not so common.

Multi-cloud usage is popular today. According to TechJury, 81% of all enterprises choose the usage of two or more cloud providers for extending their capabilities. Public cloud providers offer a bunch of several services and even if they’re similar, they are not the same. Business owners may want to take advantage of different cloud platforms without fully committing to one and only.

Multi-cloud strategy: pros and cons

In order to make the right choice, the company should take into consideration key aspects of working with a particular architecture.

Innovation

Why today business owners prefer multi-cloud architecture? By choosing a multi-cloud environment, organizations can solve different problems such as overspending, or save themselves from risks like the impossibility of data loss recovery, and also deploy new resources. Moreover, they can pick the best tools offered by each platform and use them to drive greater innovation.

Computing power

High demand is not a problem for those who are devoted to multi-cloud. The deployment of two or more cloud platforms offers additional computing power, which can be used for improving a company’s productivity.

Flexibility

Some business owners don’t want to put all the eggs in one basket and stick to one cloud provider to recover faster in case of a possible disaster. With several public clouds, organizations get the possibility to scale easier and shift focus from one platform to another when/if it’s necessary. Multi-cloud deployment allows users to move the data or applications across platforms faster and, due to that, companies can back up data and improve its recovery.

Security

Security is the cornerstone of any business model, no matter what type of cloud architecture enterprise or company chooses. Public cloud platforms provide trustworthy security using a shared responsibility model. It means that the cloud provider ensures the security of the cloud and the end-user (i.e your company) is responsible for the privacy of the data it stores on the cloud platform. In this case, the IT team should be well-versed in security configurations and IAM policies within each platform.

Personnel

Cloud architects should clearly understand how each platform works in a multi-cloud environment and be able to provide compliance checks for all of them. It requires acquiring certain certifications which state that a worker is skilled enough for accomplishing assigned configuration tasks.

Costs

The multi-cloud strategy has greater potential to save the company money, than the deployment of on-premises software. However, running multiple cloud environments is not that easy as it seems. Companies should constantly keep an eye on the cloud costs and take measures in order to prevent overspending on each platform.

In this case, using cloud management platforms like Binadox can help. They allow companies to find saving opportunities by means of identifying underutilized or idle resources.

Hybrid cloud

What is a hybrid cloud? In comparison with multi-cloud, the hybrid cloud mixes public cloud with private one; public cloud with on-premises software, or all of three architectures. This is a good solution for those who used on-premises software and now want to be more flexible or want to run their own private cloud environments.

In multi-cloud architecture, each cloud platform can be used for a different purpose, for example, one cloud provider offers more beneficial storage and another one offers more powerful computing while in the hybrid cloud strategy resources are used together.

In some sense, multi-cloud architecture is nothing more than just a type of hybrid as it can include several public clouds in combination with one or more public clouds. The best thing is that cloud architecture is flexible and every company can create its own structure designed to satisfy its needs.

Hybrid cloud: pros and cons

What should an organization focus on while cogitating over designing a hybrid cloud?

Scalability

Hybrid cloud combines the computing power of public cloud with private cloud which allows organizations to scale faster, helping them to build their cloud architecture quickly and easily scale computing up and down.

Computing speed

Although hybrid cloud has most of the multi-cloud advantages, there is one factor that sets it apart – speed. As private cloud platforms can be cut down to handle specific tasks, the usual operations are not vulnerable to latency and are not interrupted.

Security

In the case of security, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud do not differ that much. However, in hybrid cloud architecture, there is a possibility to use more reliable encryption methods within the private cloud architecture. Besides, the organizations may deploy their own configurations and protocols for keeping data as secure as possible.

Personnel

A hybrid cloud strategy, compared to multi-cloud, may fit the companies that have workers experienced or skilled in at least one type of public cloud, for example, Azure or AWS. This results in team members becoming experts in one public cloud platform rather than trying to kill two (or more) birds with one stone.

Costs

Private clouds are better than on-premises when talking about cost optimization. But choosing a private cloud, business owners should search for new staff to develop and manage that environment. The increase in the number of employees, in turn, leads to additional spending.

Choose between multi-cloud and hybrid cloud architecture

Every cloud architecture has its own positive and negative sides. When choosing between two strategies or the combination of two, an organization should stick to its goals.

When a decision is taken, there are still some issues to think about. It’s difficult for IT teams to always keep an eye on security vulnerabilities, analyze the utilization of resources, and track the spendings manually, especially across multiple cloud environments. It would be much easier to use a cloud management platform to facilitate the deployment of multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments by right-sizing resources, managing costs, and ensuring security and compliance across clouds.

Binadox platform allows you to analyze resource utilization, prevent overspending on unused services and predict future costs. Moreover, with Binadox you can receive accountable recommendations for better resources and cost allocation.

Want to manage your multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud environment?

Sign up for a free 14-day trial

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Cloud Cost Optimization: 5 Best Practices to Reduce Cloud Bills

Cloud Cost Optimization: 5 Best Practices to Reduce Cloud Bills

~5 minutes read

Cloud cost optimization

The cloud cost optimization process includes reducing cloud spend by detecting unutilized resources, getting rid of wastes, purchasing resources with discounts, and rightsizing instances that don’t match the workload to facilitate the scaling process.

The cloud offers the possibility of scaling in an easier way, as well as lowers the company’s costs by only charging it for the resources it actually uses. However, some cloud providers as AWS or Microsoft Azure charge organizations for all ordered, but not always used resources. Luckily, there are many ways to optimize your cloud costs.

5 cloud cost optimization best practices

Here are some practices that should be included in the checklist for riching cloud cost efficiency:

1. Identify underutilized resources

Look for underutilized cloud resources – it’s the first and the easiest step to optimize the company’s cloud costs. When instances have a low level of utilization and companies still pay for them as for instances working to the fullest extent – it is a total waste.

A cloud cost optimization strategy should start by identifying underutilized resources and starting exploiting them to the maximum or eliminating them.

2. Find idle resources

It’s even worse when bills the organization gets from cloud providers include charges for cloud resources once purchased but no longer used.

Most of the cloud providers offer the “pay-as-you-go” model, as it’s beneficial for companies and large enterprises to pay for the resources they actually use. However, there are always a bunch of resources you forgot about.

Identifying idle resources is the next step in cloud cost optimization strategy. In this case, the company needs to reconsider resource allocation and remove unutilized resources.

3. Rightsize computing services

Rightsizing is the process of adjusting a cloud service allocation type and size to the actual workload demand. It is one of the most effective cloud cost optimization techniques. Not only does rightsizing reduce cloud costs, but it also allows the company to use cloud resources it is paying for, as much as possible. However, rightsizing can be difficult to perform because there are plenty of things to be considered.

First of all, you need to understand what exactly you should rightsize. That requires monitoring the recent application activity to identify typical for your organization consumption patterns. Secondly, you should think strategically and always keep in mind possible changes in workload – this mindset will help you to avoid the situation when there is a sudden jump in consumption but you have already downsized everything that seemed odd.

Using the Binadox platform for rightsizing will facilitate you in accomplishing both above-mentioned tasks. Not only will you be able to see the whole consumption trends for your cloud but also create a rightsizing recommendation specifying how your future workload can change. Once the recommendation is ready you can send it to your IT team for making a decision on the required action.

4. Invest in Reserved Instances (RIs)

Purchase of Reserved Instances – one more way to save money, especially for enterprises devoted to the cloud. RIs are not physical instances, but rather a billing discount applied to the use of On-Demand Instances in your account.

Investing in Reserved Instances, you pay for the entire term regardless of actual use and in return, you get a discount based on time commitment (for one year or more). There are several payment options: you can pay for your RIs upfront, partially upfront, or monthly.

However, there is one important thing to consider: if you buy Reserved Instance without first analyzing the past utilization and cost, you will be paying for resources you do not need. Look before you leap.

5. Choose between multi-cloud and single cloud

More and more companies nowadays prefer multi-cloud – it’s the combination of several public clouds. It allows companies to get an advantage from each of the cloud providers used for organizing the working process.

However, many factors should be taken into account, so considering multi-cloud is not always the most beneficial option. First of all, companies may lose potential discounts, offered by a single cloud vendor if they spend a significant amount of money on it annually. Secondly, it may be inconvenient to monitor and manage multiple cloud platforms.

The decision on using the multi-cloud or single cloud is all up to you. We recommend taking your time and weighing all pros and cons before sticking to something one.

Ultimate solution

The cloud definitely can save some money in the long term perspective but only if the cloud manager of the company pays close attention to optimizing its cost. As we mentioned before, implementing a multi-cloud strategy requires total involvement in the process.

Such third-party tools as Binadox can greatly save your time on making decisions regarding the way your cloud bills can be reduced. All you need to do is to connect several clouds to the system and enjoy the transparency of the cost and usage data in one unified dashboard.

Moreover, the Cloud Cost Explorer section will give you a detailed consumption breakdown for a chosen cloud account. Also, you will be able to apply Binadox tags for multiple cloud providers’ accounts to see if the money allocated for a particular business unit or department is spent wisely.

Try Binadox free for 14-days and remember a penny saved is a penny earned.

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Workspace Management

Workspace Management

~5 minutes read

1. Get Started With a New Workspace

When you open Binadox for the first time, you are prompted to create a workspace.

A Workspace is a place where you organize the process of monitoring and cost optimization for various cloud and subscription services.

In your Binadox account, you may create multiple workspaces and organize required levels of access for your employees based on the tasks they accomplish.

1. To create your first Workspace on Binadox, go to the My Workspaces home page, click the New Workspace button.

2. Enter a Workspace name, write a short description (optionally), and select a payment plan. Click Create Workspace. You will be redirected to the payment gateway to make a payment. After the transaction is complete, you will be notified that the payment has been successfully made and you will be able to get started.

1.1 Demo Workspace

A Demo Workspace was developed to help you to get acquainted with Binadox. It provides you with read-only access to dashboards with pre-loaded metrics and graphs that you would see after connecting your applications and cloud services with Binadox.

Proceed to the Demo Workspace to get familiar with the user interface and see Binadox features in action.

1.2 Switching Between Workspaces

To switch between Workspaces you need to click on the workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Switch Workspace in the drop-down list. After doing this you will be redirected to the My Workspaces home page. Here you can choose and open the required workspace.

1.3 Managing a Workspace

Permissions:
Admin permissions are required to manage a Workspace.

From Workspace Settings, you can customize your Workspace details, upgrade your current subscription, manage Workspace members.

To customize a workspace, click on the workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Manage Workspace in the drop-down list.

1.3.1 Workspace Roles and Permissions

An administrator assigns roles for each user within a Workspace. The role defines permissions to view or manage specific workspace data. A Binadox user may have different roles in different workspaces.
The following workspace roles are available in Binadox:

Permissions	Read-Only	Standard	Admin
View graphs and metrics, automatic recommendations on potential savings and usage optimization, upcoming renewal dates of connected applications with related information.	✔	✔	✔
Connect applications and cloud environments, set budgets, customize alerts, change system configurations.		✔	✔
Manage the Workspace (view, add, remove workspace members and change their roles, delete the workspace), update subscription details.			✔

1.3.2 Inviting New Members

Permissions:
Admin permissions are required to invite members to a workspace.

To share a workspace with your co-workers or external specialists you need to invite them to your Workspace.

Please follow the instruction to invite a user to a Workspace:

1. Click on the workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Manage Workspace from the drop-down list;
2. From Workspace Settings, click on the Add Member button;
3. In the Add a New Member window, enter an email address of a person you want to invite;
4. Select a Workspace role defining the required level of permissions;
5. Click Send Invite.

1.3.3 Accepting a Workspace Invitation

To join a workspace you need to check your mailbox for an email invitation.

The followings steps are required to accept a Workspace Invitation:
1. Open the invite email sent by an Admin;
2. Click on the Accept Invite button;
3. Log into your existing account;
4. Find the shared workspace in the My Workspaces list on the home page.

NOTE: If a user does not have an account, he/she will be redirected to the sign-up form.

1.3.4 Changing Workspace Roles

Permissions:
Admin permissions are required to change the role of a workspace member.

1. To change a member’s role within a Workspace, click on the Workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Manage Workspace in the drop-down list.
2. From Workspace Settings, find the member whose role you want to change. The current role is indicated next to his name in the Workspace Role column. To see the permissions he/she has, hover the mouse pointer over the workspace role.
3. To change a workspace role, click on it. Select the required role in the dropdown list.

1.3.5 Deleting a Workspace Member

Permissions:
Admin permissions are required to delete the user from a Workspace.

1. To remove the user from a Workspace, click on the Workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Manage Workspace in the drop-down list.
2. From Workspace Settings, find the member you want to delete. Click on the Delete button next to his/her name.

1.3.6 Changing a Workspace Name and Description

Permissions:
Admin permissions are required to rename a workspace or add a description.

You can change a workspace name or add a description anytime, if necessary.

1. Сlick on the workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Manage Workspace in the drop-down list.
2. In the Workspace Details section, click Edit to change a workspace name or add a description.
3. Make all required changes and click Save.

1.3.7 Updating Subscription Details

Permissions:
Admin permissions are required to update subscription details.

Your subscription is automatically renewed on a recurring basis unless you decide to unsubscribe.

From the Subscription Details section, click Change Plan to upgrade or downgrade your current payment plan.

To change the payment plan or cancel your subscription, сlick on the workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Manage Workspace in the drop-down list.

NOTE: You can change your active subscription at any time during your billing period. You will receive a prorated charge or be entitled to a prorated refund depending on the price of a new payment plan. A new plan will start from the upgrade date.

1.3.8 Leaving a Workspace

Permissions:
If you are the only administrator in the workspace, you will have to transfer your admin rights to another user before leaving it.

1. To leave a Workspace, click on the workspace card on the My Workspaces home page to enter this workspace.
2. Click on the workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Leave Workspace in the drop-down list.
3. In the dialogue box, click Leave Workspace to confirm.

NOTE: You will no longer have access to the workspace and all data associated with it until you are invited to the workspace again by a workspace administrator.

1.4 Deleting a Workspace

Permissions:
Admin permissions are required to delete a Workspace. A workspace with an active subscription that is shared with other members cannot be deleted. Remove all the members first. A workspace with an expired subscription cannot be deleted if you are not the only admin. In this case, please contact Customer Support for assistance.

1. To delete a workspace, сlick on the workspace icon in the top left corner. Select Manage Workspace in the drop-down list.

2. From Workspace Settings, click on the Delete Workspace button.

3. In the dialogue box, click Delete Workspace to confirm.

NOTE: Deleting a workspace will permanently delete all data within it. This cannot be undone. Your subscription will be canceled.

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How to Build an Effective Cloud Management Strategy

How to Build an Effective Cloud Management Strategy

~5 minutes read

The possibility to scale easier and reduce unexpected cost spikes made enterprises consider cloud migration. Cloud computing is more agile and new, in comparison with traditional IT.

But the cloud is not a magic wand: once you’ve chosen this solution, you need to think about cloud management, which requires the governance of cloud deployment, security, and cost optimization.

Cloud management definition

What is cloud management? It’s the process of centralized administrative control of cloud products and services connected remotely. Successful cloud management involves cloud costs monitoring and providing a secure and healthy environment, in terms of public, private, or hybrid cloud architectures.

To keep the cloud environment healthy, an organization should develop a smart cloud management strategy.

Two approaches to managing the cloud

What is a cloud management strategy? It’s an optimization of cloud performance, spends, and security. Companies can manage their cloud by using native cloud tools and/or implementing third-party applications (also known as cloud management platforms).

Cloud-native tools are the instruments the cloud provider offers itself. Nowadays cloud platforms have many tools to effectively monitor cloud resource utilization and cost. There are some examples of cloud-native monitoring tools provided by Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform:

Cloud Native Tools: AWS, Azure, GCP (Source: K21Academy, k21academy.com)

The downside – sometimes it’s difficult to learn and master these tools. Moreover, some organizations use several cloud platforms and each platform has its own cloud monitoring tools, so there is no unified dashboard that presents the whole picture.

Cloud Management Platforms, on the other hand, provide visibility by a unified dashboard. It helps companies to manage various cloud assets, control their costs, continuously check security and compliance, and arrange operational processes wisely. As an example, below you can see how the Cloud Utilization Dashboard looks on Binadox.

Cloud management strategy: 7 essential factors

Building a smart cloud management strategy is crucial and at the same time a very demanding task. So, how to manage the cloud most productively? First of all, you need to adopt the right tool which would allow you to effectively monitor your numerous cloud resources. It must provide you with total visibility on what is used and how much it costs. The main principle here – unused resources should be disposed, idle – scheduled, underutilized – rightsized.

There are a lot of things to consider while building an effective cloud strategy but we have outlined 7 factors you should pay attention to primarily:

1. Asset management

Cloud managers always need to keep an eye on their cloud environment. Inventory is the first step – you should know what resources the company possesses.

Moreover, having total visibility on how purchased cloud resources are consumed is essential for allocating budget wisely. Supply should always match with demand.

2. Resource utilization

Optimization of cloud resource usage is the next step. It makes more sense to monitor resource utilization over a defined period to trace consumption patterns, compare it with provisioned capacity and modify the allocation size if a resource is found larger than required. The process of configuring your cloud resources so that it meets the organization’s current and future workload needs is called rightsizing.

The biggest advantage of rightsizing is that it helps to find a balance between performance (based on utilization) and cost to reduce waste as much as possible.

3. Cost management

Cloud spend control is important if you don’t want to waste money on the resources you’ll never use. To detect such resources, cloud managers need to check extremely low utilization metrics over a specified period of time. Once detected, initiate a procedure to shut down the unused resources to gain cost savings.

4. Billing and cost allocation

Probably one of the most considerable pillars of cost management is cost allocation. It is essential for forming financial reports to properly assign the cost among various cost-generating objects such as particular products, regions, departments, teams, or individuals. Such correlation between cost and a unit which produces it allows the financial controllers to calculate the true efficiency of the department or function and identify major cost drivers in a company.

Third-party cost management tools in this sense give a more detailed, precise vision of cost objects for which the company needs to allocate the cost.

5. Security

Security is the cornerstone for every cloud architecture. Cloud security is a shared responsibility between you and the cloud provider, so it should be taken seriously by both sides. Your company should make sure that measures such as enforcing encryption and protecting storage are taken to avoid possible data breaches. Also, the company should track the risks and get rid of them quickly or even beforehand.

Cloud providers help you to deal with all of that, providing you with native tools. As well as third-party applications can facilitate this process to ensure better cloud security.

6. Compliance

Compliance in cloud computing is highly important. Data privacy regulations have been designed to make sure that organizations handle sensitive data responsibly.

Reliable organizations should meet federal and international requirements to be ready for audit. And a solid cloud management strategy should have a tool to automatically detect the problems and include compliance checks regularly.

7. Automation

Working smarter, not harder – that is the key to success. Cloud automation can take over some of the tasks like auto-provisioning servers, or detecting and eliminating unused processes. It allows your IT team to focus on more critical tasks and accomplish their major responsibilities. Also, automation can help to reduce human error and cloud sprawl.

You can use cloud automation software tools that take codified steps and run them automatically, without humans involved.

A way to simplify cloud management

Cloud management is a continuous process for all organizations. This article considers 7 parameters that companies should pay attention to while building a sustainable cloud management strategy. Fortunately, there are cloud management platforms like Binadox that can facilitate these factors.

With Binadox, it is easier to analyze and compare your cloud costs over a defined period and detect unused, underutilized, and idle resources. Also, the system offers rightsizing recommendations based on a predicted workload and the possibility of tagging multiple cloud resources to allocate costs more efficiently.

Want to know more about Binadox?
Sign up for a free account to try Binadox out!

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Amazon Web Services Integration

Amazon Web Services Integration

~5 minutes read

Contents:

1. Delegate Access to the AWS Billing and Cost Management Console

2. Create Cost & Usage Report and Configure an S3 Bucket

2.1 (Previous version) Cost and Usage Reports

2.2 (Updated version) Standard data export

2.3 (Updated version) Legacy CUR export

3. Add a New IAM User

4. Add a Policy

5. Create an Access Key

6. Locate an AWS Account ID

7. Create New Connection for AWS in Binadox

This guide provides information on how to integrate an AWS environment with the Binadox multi-cloud cost management and optimization platform to plan, analyze and reduce infrastructure costs.

To successfully integrate Binadox with an AWS account, it is required to create a new IAM user with access to the AWS API, read-only access to billing data, and certain AWS services for drill-down analysis, as well as to configure an S3 bucket for AWS cost and usage reports.

1. Delegate Access to the AWS Billing and Cost Management Console

Prerequisites:
IAM user access to the Billing and Cost Management Console is activated in the root user account only.

Before you add a new IAM user to represent Binadox, it is required to enable billing access on your AWS account, which will allow Binadox to view billing data for cost optimization.

By default, IAM user access to the Billing and Cost Management Console is disabled. Enable it for an IAM billing policy to take effect.

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console with root account credentials.

2. In the top right corner of the console, click on the profile (account) name or number. Select Account in the drop-down list.

3. You will be redirected to the Billing and Cost Management Console. Scroll down to the IAM User and Role Access to Billing Information section. Click Edit.

4. Put a tick mark against Activate IAM Access. Click Update to activate access to the Billing and Cost Management Console pages.

2. Create Cost & Usage Reports and Configure an S3 Bucket

2.1 (Previous version) Cost and Usage Reports

1. After activating IAM access, go up and click Legacy Pages > Cost and Usage Reports in the navigation pane. Click the Create report button.

2. In Step 1, called “Specify report details”, provide the following details:

Enter a name for the report (e.g. MyNewReport) into the Report name – required field.
In the Additional content section, select the Include resource IDs and Split cost allocation data checkboxes.
In the Data refresh settings section, select the Refresh automatically checkbox.

Click Next.

3. In Step 2, called “Set delivery options“, click Configure in the Configure S3 Bucket section.

Note:

S3 bucket configuration is required to store the AWS Cost and Usage Reports.

4. In the Configure S3 Bucket dialogue box, perform the following actions:

Select Create a bucket.
Enter a bucket name into the S3 bucket name field.
Select the US East (N. Virginia) region in the Region drop-down list.
Select the The following default policy will be applied to your bucket checkbox.

Click Save.

Note:
The bucket name is one of the parameters required for the integration of your AWS account with Binadox.

5. Continue to specify the Report delivery options:

Create a S3 path prefix. This field is required.
In the Report data time granularity section, select the Daily radio button.
In the Report versioning section, select the Overwrite existing report radio button.
Leave Report data integration not selected.
Select the GZIP format in the Compression type drop-down list.

Click Next.

7. After you have reviewed the report details, click Create report.

Important:
It can take up to 24 hours for AWS to start delivering reports to your Amazon S3 bucket. Binadox will recalculate data during the next scheduled data update.

2.2 (Updated version) Standard data export

1. Amazon Web Services (AWS) recommends exploring a new user experience, and you can transition to this mode using either of the following two methods:

On the Cost and Usage Reports page, an overlay window will appear at the top. Click the Try New Experience button.
In the navigation pane, toggle the switch to activate the New Navigation mode.

2. Click Data Exports in the navigation pane. Click the Create button.

3. Within the Export type section, opt for Standard data export. In the Export name section, input the desired name into the Export name field.

4. In the Data table content settings section, provide the following details:

Select CUR 2.0.
In the Additional export content section, select the Include resource IDs and Split cost allocation data checkboxes.
In the Time granularity section, select the Daily radio button.

5. In the Data table delivery options section, select gzip – text/csv and Overwrite existing data export file radio buttons.

6. Within the section for Data export storage settings, click Configure.

7. In the Configure S3 Bucket dialogue box, perform the following actions:

Select Create a bucket.
Enter a bucket name into the S3 bucket name field.
Select the US East (N. Virginia) region in the Region drop-down list.

Click Create bucket.

8. Specify the S3 path prefix that you intend to have prefixed to the name of your data export. Click the Create button at the bottom of the page.

2.3 (Updated version) Legacy CUR export

1. Click Data Exports in the navigation pane. Click the Create button.

2. Within the Export type section, opt for Legacy CUR export. In the Export name section, input the desired name into the Export name field.

3. Navigate to the Export Content section, and proceed to Additional export content. Provide the following details:

Select the Include resource IDs checkbox.
Select the Split cost allocation data checkbox.
In the Data refresh settings section, select the Refresh automatically checkbox.

4. In the Data table delivery options section, perform the following actions:

In the Report data time granularity section, select the Daily radio button.
In the Report versioning section, select the Overwrite existing report radio button.
Leave Report data integration not selected.
Select the GZIP format in the Compression type drop-down list.

5. In the Data export storage settings section, click Configure.

6. In the Configure S3 Bucket dialogue box, proceed with the following actions:

Select Create a bucket.
Enter a bucket name into the S3 bucket name field.
Select the US East (N. Virginia) region in the Region drop-down list.
Click Create bucket.

7. Click the Create report button.

3. Add a New IAM User

1. Navigate to the IAM Console. In the menu bar at the top, click Services > Security, Identity & Compliance > IAM. Use the search bar, if necessary.

2. You will be redirected to the Identify and Access Management Console. In the navigation pane, select Users in the Access management group and click Create user.

3. Set User name and click the Next button.

4. Select Add user to group in the Permissions options section and click Next at the bottom of the page.

5. On the Review and create page, scroll down and click Create user. If all conditions are met, you will get an alert “User created successfully”.

4. Add a Policy

1. In the navigation pane, choose Policies. Click the Create policy button at the top of the page.

2. You will be redirected to the Create Policy view. On the JSON tab, insert the following file in the Policy editor. Click the Next button at the bottom of the page.

3. Provide the Policy name and Description(optional) in the fields of Policy details form. Click the Create policy button at the bottom of the page.

4. Repeat steps 1-3 to create Write Permissions and insert the following file.

5. If all conditions are met, you will get an alert “Policy created”. Select the Users section and search for your new user. Click on it.

6. You will be redirected to the user page. On the Permissions tab, click Add permissions.

7. On the Add permissions page, select Attach policies directly in Permissions options. Search for new permissions in the search bar and put a tick mark against it. Click Next.

8. On the Review page, click Add permissions. If all conditions are met, you will get an alert “2 policies added”.

5. Create an Access Key

1. Go to the Security credentials tab.

2. Scroll down and click the Create access key button in the Access keys section.

3. On the Access key best practices & alternatives page, select Application running outside AWS, check the box in the Сonfirmation section and click Next in the lower right corner of the page.

4. Click the Create access key button.

5. On the Retrieve access keys page, click on the Add to clipboard icon and save keys.

Note:

This is the only time that the secret access key can be viewed or downloaded. You cannot recover it later. However, you can create a new access key any time.

6. Locate an AWS Account ID

To integrate an AWS account with Binadox, it is required to specify an AWS account ID. An AWS account ID is located in the navigation bar on the upper right. Click on the account name and copy the Account ID to the clipboard.

7. Create New Connection for AWS in Binadox

1. Log into your Binadox account.

2. Click Home in the navigation pane on the left. Select the Cloud Providers card and click Manage.

3. You will be redirected to the Utilization Dashboard page. Scroll down and click the Add account button.

4. In the dialogue box click on the Amazon Web Services icon.

5. You will be redirected to the Connection page. Enter the Connection Name.

6. Enter security credentials:

Access Key ID (see Clause 5)
Secret Access Key (see Clause 5)
User Name
Password
Account ID (see Clause 6)
Bucket (see Clause 2)

Click Connect.

6. Note that a brief processing period will be required. If all conditions are met, you will get an alert “Completed Successfully”.

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Digital Ocean Integration

Digital Ocean Integration

~5 minutes read

This guide illustrates how to integrate Digital Ocean with the Binadox to monitor, analyze and reduce cloud costs.

To integrate Binadox with a Digital Ocean account, all you need to do is to create a personal access token and paste it into the system.

1. Generate personal access token in Digital Ocean

1. Sign in to the Digital Ocean portal with root account credentials.

2. Click API in the navigation pane on the left.

3. In the Applications & API section, click on the Generate New Token button to create a new personal access token.

4. In the popup modal window, enter the token name and select token expiration period (select “No expiry” to keep the token). Then, define token permissions (scope). Select which level of access you would like to grant. Notice that Read (default) access is enough for establishing integration and receiving the data. Click Generate Token.

5. Once the token is created, copy it to the clipboard.

2. Use Digital Ocean token to integrate with Binadox

1. Log into your Binadox account.

2. There are two possible ways to connect a cloud account:

In case when you have no cloud accounts connected yet, click Home in the navigation pane on the left. Choose a cloud account you want to connect to and click the Connect button.

In case you have connected cloud accounts, click Home in the navigation pane on the left. Select the Cloud providers card and click the Manage button. In the Cloud Utilization Dashboard, click the Add Account button in the Cloud Accounts tab. Click on the Digital Ocean icon.

You will be redirected to the Connection page. Enter the personal access token in an empty field and click Connect.

Note:

You will be able to view Digital Ocean cost data for the past 60 days in Binadox immediately after integration.

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Gmail Invoice Discovery Integration

Gmail Invoice Discovery Integration

~5 minutes read

This guide describes how to integrate Gmail with the Binadox multi-cloud SaaS and IaaS usage monitoring and cost optimization platform to be able to automatically extract invoices from Gmail to Binadox for spend optimization analysis.

1. Log into your Binadox account.

2. In the navigation pane on the left, click Integrations. Proceed to the Discovery tab. Click on the Gmail icon. To quickly locate the Gmail software in the list of supported applications, type in its name in the search bar or use an alphabetical filter by clicking on the first letter of an application name, i.e. G.

2. In the navigation pane on the left, click SaaS Applications, then select License Manager. Click the Invoices tab. Click the Connection List button located in the upper right corner. Click Connect System and select Gmail inbox.

3. Create a connection name for further reference and differentiation. Click Continue.

4. Click on the calendar icon to specify the date, from which Binadox starts scanning bill data in a Gmail account and extracting invoices for spend optimization. Click Continue.

5. You will be redirected to the Google Sign In form. Sign in with your credentials and click Next.

6. To give Binadox an access to extract invoices from your Google account to Binadox for spend optimization analysis, click Allow.

7. Copy the secret code by clicking on the copy icon.

8. Return to Gmail connection on Binadox and paste the code into the Secret Code field. Click Connect.

9. Upon successful Gmail Invoice Discovery configuration, the connection status will switch into Connected.

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