Cloud Cost Diagnostics: How We Work and What You Get

Most cloud cost consulting works as “tell us your requirements → here is a proposal.” We work the other way around: read the real system data first, reverse-engineer what the business actually needs, and only then discuss architecture. This avoids a common mistake — sizing resources for an imagined peak and paying for load that does not exist.

What You Prepare

Read-only cloud console access (Alibaba Cloud / Tencent Cloud / AWS / Azure), or console screenshots against our checklist
Billing details for the last 1-3 months
A 30-minute business briefing: peak hours, growth expectations, compliance constraints

What We Collect (4-5 hours, on-site or remote)

Target	Key data points
ECS / VM instances	Size, CPU / memory / disk utilization, unit price
Databases	Size, storage volume, connections, slow queries
Object storage	Total volume, access frequency, lifecycle policies
Network	Bandwidth utilization, egress costs, VPN / dedicated line setup
Billing	Monthly itemized breakdown
Business side	Concurrent users, peak hours, data growth rate

Analysis Framework: Reverse-Engineering Real Demand from Utilization

Signal	Reading
CPU sustained > 60%	Real compute pressure; core count is roughly right
CPU sustained < 20%	Over-provisioned; usually downsizable by 50%+
CPU sustained 1-5%	Severely idle; replace with on-demand or consolidate
Memory > 70% with CPU < 30%	Classic database / cache profile; hot-data volume can be estimated from it
Disk > 80%	Capacity risk; clean up immediately and tier cold/hot data
Static assets served from ECS	Move to CDN + object storage; typically 60-80% cheaper

What You Get

Deliverable	Content
Resource utilization report	Real load vs. allocation per instance, waste ratio flagged
Business scale profile	Actual data volume, concurrency, and growth trend inferred from resources
Savings path proposal	Prioritized optimization list with expected savings per item
Architecture plan	Recommended target architecture (cloud / hybrid / private) with a hardware and software list
ROI model	One-time investment vs. annual savings, payback period

To see what a full report looks like, read the diagnostic report sample (synthetic data).

Three Typical Savings Paths

Path	Fits	What changes	Expected reduction
A. Cloud-only optimization	No appetite for hardware, or lighter loads	Right-sizing, reserved instances, data tiering, auto-scaling	30-50%
B. Hybrid cloud	On-prem room available, data > 500GB, annual cloud spend > ¥50k	Database / search engine moved to physical servers, public-facing services stay on cloud	70-90%
C. Fully private	Strong compliance needs, or very high cloud spend	Everything moved to your own rack; overseas nodes stay on VPS	85-95%, higher one-time investment

No path is universally better. The diagnostic report gives a recommendation for your specific environment, with a switchover window and a rollback plan. Staging, hardware ownership, and rollback are in Hybrid and Private Migration.

Sometimes the expensive line is egress, not cores. In a published AI media-platform case, object storage served images and video directly to pages. Over 30 days, daily traffic fell from 1,413 GB to 164 GB, cache hit ratio reached 93.7%, and monthly cost estimates moved from about ¥21,195 to about ¥517. The first decision was the billing item and list prefetch, not another traffic pack.

Next Step

Diagnostics are the first stage of our delivery process. For the full stage breakdown see the technical service delivery process; for scope and other common questions see the FAQ.