Optimization has emerged as a defining trend within the cloud industry in 2023.

Evidence of this can be seen in SiliconANGLE’s recent analysis of comments made by the chief financial officers of the three largest hyperscale cloud companies last month. All three noted that customers were seeking ways to optimize cloud spending, which has contributed to recent slower growth, according to SiliconANGLE industry analyst Dave Vellante. However, this will also fuel new expansion in the cloud ecosystem.

“Toward the end of 2021, we began to see early-inning signs of optimization kicking in more broadly where customers took a harder look at the spectrum of pricing options and began to get more aggressive about cost-cutting,” Vellante said. “Aggressive and ongoing cost optimization is not a negative for cloud demand, in our opinion. Rather, it will drive more demand in the long run and serve to make the cloud even more attractive going forward.”

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, in partnership with Amazon Web Services Inc., will bring together seven dynamic companies to discuss cutting-edge insights and solutions for leveraging analytics workloads and reducing cloud cost during the “Analytics and Cost Optimization” AWS Startup Showcase on June 8 at 10 a.m. PT. Founders and industry experts will bring their unique perspectives and experiences to the table, covering topics such as database caching, policy as code, infrastructure automation and governance policies to achieve optimal cost savings and operational efficiency. (* Disclosure below.)

Quest for lower costs

Interest in cloud cost optimization was not always this high. A surge in overall cloud demand during the pandemic fueled growth and profitability. However, tougher economic realities in 2022 led cloud customers to take a harder look at pricing options and new ways to achieve economies at scale.

Several firms participating in the “Startup Showcase” next month offer cost optimization solutions for the cloud. Archera Inc. provides a cost-savings framework that customers can leverage to reduce cloud computing expenses through a guaranteed buy-back provision that lets users sell cloud-processing commitments not long after purchase.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly coming into play for companies providing solutions in this space. Another participant in the Showcase, Sedai Inc., delivers AI-powered cloud-cost optimization and performance tuning. While nOps Inc. provides a one-click experience for cost optimization based on AI models it has developed.

“The future of cloud management is AI and automation,” said JT Giri, chief executive of nOps, in an interview with SiliconANGLE in advance of the event. “Rather than managing commitments on spreadsheets, we have a model that automatically learns how we can maximize commitments for customers.”

Welcoming new solutions

It would be natural to assume that the large cloud providers would be concerned about an expanding ecosystem of startups building tools that could sharply reduce hyperscaler revenue. Yet at least two of the companies scheduled to appear in the Showcase next month have formed deep partnerships with AWS.

ProsperOps Inc. provides a software platform that helps AWS customers reduce cloud infrastructure spending through use of an automated system to apply usage discounts. The company, whose services can be accessed through the AWS Marketplace, claims its solution can deliver average savings of 40%.

Pepperdata Inc. has built a set of offerings to realize greater efficiency for users of Amazon EMR and Amazon EKS, among others, to the point where the cloud giant has brought the startup to customers with the goal of saving money on its own platform.

“They are taking us into customers where the customers have a cost problem,” said Ash Munshi, chief executive officer of Pepperdata, in an interview with SiliconANGLE. “It’s unusual for a company to basically say, ‘Hey, guess what? I’m going to take you into a customer to help them save money on my platform.’ Our core strength is basically being able to reduce cost by being able to utilize resources much better.”

The startup ecosystem is also creating robust optimization solutions for the developer community. With their significant role in workload and application development, developers can have a major say in the efficient use of cloud resources. Showcase participants will discuss these topics and more on June 8.

RudderStack Inc. enables companies to collect, unify and activate their customer data. The startup turns a data warehouse into a data platform with a support infrastructure to take the burden off developers.

TheCUBE event livestream

Don’t miss theCUBE’s coverage of the “Analytics and Cost Optimization” AWS Startup Showcase event on June 8. Plus, you can watch theCUBE’s event coverage on-demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch theCUBE’s coverage of the “Analytics and Cost Optimization” AWS Startup Showcase event, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

SiliconANGLE also has analyst deep dives in our Breaking Analysis podcast, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify.

Guests

During the “Analytics and Cost Optimization” AWS Startup Showcase event, theCUBE analysts will talk with leading founders and visionaries of companies about strategies for accelerating analytics and controlling costs, including Archera.ai, nOps, Pepperdata, RudderStack, ProsperOps, Sedai Inc. and Hex Technologies.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the “Analytics and Cost Optimization” AWS Startup Showcase event. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: SiliconANGLE