Spotlight

Report:

The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions, Q3 2024

How does Forrester define the Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions market in 2024?

The cloud cost management and optimization (CCMO) market continues meteoric growth driven by three areas: 1) public cloud as a necessary part of enterprise infrastructure strategy, 2) slowed economic growth prompting cost-cutting measures and spend justification demands, 3) contraction of hybrid cloud management world, shifting focus from heavy, complex hybrid cloud management solutions to simpler, less expensive CCMO solutions. The market now includes traditional CCMO and hybrid cloud management vendors, plus adjacent vendors from cloud security, observability and monitoring, and multicloud container platforms who are introducing or deepening CCMO capabilities. Managed service providers and global systems integrators are also widening CCMO capabilities with broader tooling vendor support to meet customer demand.

Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions, Q3 2024 in 2024

How did the Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions market evolve in 2024?

What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?

What are the common features of top products in the Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions space?

No common features specified.

Scope Exclusions

Inclusion Criteria

Vendors must, among other requirements:

Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting

Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting

FAQs

Q: What does this research cover?

A: This research evaluates 12 cloud cost management and optimization vendors across 25 criteria grouped into three categories: Current Offering, Strategy, and Market Presence. It analyzes vendor capabilities in visibility, optimization, unit costs, automation, billing administration, reporting, recommendations, remediation, cloud platform placement, usage policies, cost planning, capacity planning, integrations, and support services. The evaluation identifies Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders, and Challengers in the CCMO market.

Q: Who should use this research?

A: Cloud professionals and infrastructure & operations teams evaluating CCMO solutions should use this research to compare vendors and select the right solution for their needs. Organizations should consider this evaluation when looking for tools that support all major cloud vendors, tie engineering decisions to business targets, and integrate with solutions beyond infrastructure-as-a-service. Buyers can use the Excel-based vendor comparison tool to adapt criteria weightings to their specific requirements.

Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?

A: All vendors included in this evaluation must provide: 1) A standalone CCMO solution purchasable with one SKU that doesn't require augmentation from another solution for basic visibility optimization, 2) Optimization recommendations for at least two major public cloud platforms, 3) Cost visibility for compute, storage, and database across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud as a minimum, 4) Product revenue of $10 million or more from CCMO capabilities, and 5) Generally available solutions and capabilities as of February 29, 2024.

Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?

A:

  • Solutions that are not available as standalone tools and require bundling with other products
  • Vendors that provide optimization for fewer than two major public cloud providers
  • Lack of basic cost visibility for compute, storage, and database across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
  • Product revenue below $10 million threshold for CCMO capabilities
  • Solutions or capabilities not generally available by the February 29, 2024 cutoff date
  • Vendors that declined to participate in the evaluation process
  • Vendors that only partially participated in the evaluation process

Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?

A:

  • Support and provide optimization recommendations for all major cloud vendors (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud) - unified visibility, customized dashboards, and optimized recommendations are now commoditized capabilities
  • Look for deepest and broadest optimization recommendations for virtual machines, Kubernetes instances, storage, GPUs, and serverless services
  • Tie engineering decisions to business targets - seek tools that provide cloud unit cost economic identification and calculations (cost per deployment, cost per build, cost per team, cost per application)
  • Integrate with and ingest costs from any solution beyond infrastructure as a service - achieve total-cost-of-ownership view spanning public cloud, on-premises infrastructure, SaaS and PaaS solutions
  • Ensure bidirectional integration with any solution (e.g., Snowflake, Terraform, Salesforce) without requiring prebuilt integration
  • Evaluate vendor's ability to support multicloud environments if applicable to your organization
  • Consider whether vendor provides shift-left capabilities for early cost consideration in development
  • Assess vendor's roadmap for innovation vs. maintenance mode
  • Review pricing flexibility and transparency, including entry-level thresholds
  • Evaluate strength of partner ecosystem and supporting services

Q: How has the Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions market evolved in 2024?

A:

  • Public cloud is a necessary part of enterprise infrastructure strategy
  • Slowed economic growth has prompted cost-cutting measures and demands justification for any spend
  • Contraction of hybrid cloud management world, shifting focus from heavy, complex hybrid cloud management solutions to simpler, less expensive CCMO solutions
  • Tooling vendors from adjacent cloud management areas (cloud security, observability and monitoring, multicloud container platforms) are introducing or deepening CCMO capabilities
  • Managed service providers and global systems integrators are widening CCMO capabilities with broader support of tooling vendors
  • Unified visibility, customized dashboards, and optimized recommendations for all major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) are now commoditized capabilities
  • Growing demand for cloud unit cost economics capabilities to tie engineering decisions to business targets
  • Expansion of 'cloud' definition beyond infrastructure services to include costs from software tools and platforms (SaaS, PaaS)
  • Need for bidirectional integration with any solution beyond traditional public cloud vendors

Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?

A: Strength of Current Offering evaluates the vendor's existing product capabilities across 17 criteria including technical features (access, cloud platform support, resource discovery, billing, reporting, monitoring, recommendations, remediation), planning capabilities (cost and capacity planning), user experience (admin portal usability, platform experience), and support services (integrations, APIs, support services). Strength of Strategy evaluates the vendor's future direction and business approach across 6 criteria including forward-looking elements (vision, innovation, roadmap), ecosystem strength (partner ecosystem), and commercial flexibility (pricing flexibility and transparency, supporting services). Current Offering focuses on what the product can do today, while Strategy focuses on where the vendor is heading and how they position themselves in the market.

Reference

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