Cloud Budget, Price, Spend Management Tools: AWS, Microsoft, Google -

The Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud teams continue to launch and update cloud budget, price management and spend management tools for their various clouds. Third-party cloud cost management tools also are emerging. The big needs for end-customers and their MSPs: Getting runaway cloud spending under control -- or at least assigning cloud costs to the proper business and IT departments.

With those needs in mind, Amazon has updated AWS Budgets, according to Chief Evangelist Jeff Barr. In a blog he wrote:

"You can create up to 20,000 budgets per payer account. In order to allow you to stay on top of your spending in environments where costs and resource consumption are changing frequently, the budgets are evaluated four times per day. Notifications are delivered via email or programmatically (an Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) message), so that you can take manual, semi-automated, or fully automated corrective action."

Rivals have introduced similar cloud cost management and budgeting tools. Key options include Microsoft Azure Pricing Calculator and Google Cloud Pricing Calculator.

Mitigating Cloud Backlash

While cloud services continue to grow in popularity, many customers are discovering that they're spending far more than originally anticipated.

The problem isn't new. Runaway cloud costs have been around since the dawn of hosted, pay-as-you-go services. But now that cloud is mainstream, the runaway costs also have gone mainstream.

Amid that reality, third-party tools like CloudAbility, CloudCheckr, CloudCruiser, Cloudyn, CloudMGR and Unigma have popped up onto the scene. Many -- though not all -- of those tools were built with MSPs in mind. Also, software companies in the IT services sector have also launched their own billing management tools -- though mostly for SaaS applications like Office 365. Examples include ConnectWise CloudConsole and Autotask CSP Boss (based on MessageOps).