Cloud spend costs are spiraling as workers go remote and customers demand online and up-to-date functionality. But treating cloud costs as an unknown that “just happens” as usage spins up and down is a recipe for financial disaster.

“You can plan for your cloud spend. You can look at the demand for your resources. You can plan for different scenarios and what might happen in the future,” said Eugene Khvostov (pictured), vice president of product and engineering at Apptio Inc.

Khvostov spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. They discussed Apptio’s drive to help organizations control and manage their cloud costs for increased return on cloud investments.  (* Disclosure below.)

Cloudability tools track spend and provide insights to increase ROI

Curbing cloud cost is a great concept. But how is a company supposed to get a handle on data that piles up as quickly as spend itself?

“It’s really important that you understand how to look at that data, how to process it, and then how to make decisions from that data,” Khvostov said. This can be done with tools such as Apptio’s Cloudability and Cloudability SaaS solutions.

Worldwide technology spend is approaching $4 trillion, and Saas and IaaS are the fastest-growing segments of that spend, according to Khvostov.

“As we see more and more folks coming online, working from home, we’re seeing the demand grow for cloud services. However, at the same time, [companies] are being asked to do more with less. Less spending on resources but providing more information, more data, more content,” he said.

Real-time analysis of cloud usage data can help companies as they are expected to grow their cloud operations while at the same time making sure they minimize expense.

Visibility over who is spending what, where and how is one way to manage spend. But Apptio’s tools also provide proactive recommendations for places where costs could be cut and return on investment increased, as well as proactive anomaly detection to spotlight unusual increases or alterations in spend patterns, according to Khvostov.

“You’re getting those estimated charges every day, every hour. And we’re right there with you looking at that data as it goes by,” he said. “The ability to look at your costs and usage, and who is using it, is critical to your success.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Apptio Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Apptio nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

 Photo: SiliconANGLE