With the ever-increasing amount of data being shared, used, and processed, web app performance is more important than ever.

At the same time, users expect applications to run seamlessly, and a bad experience can potentially damage business productivity.

Slow and unreliable web applications also mean higher resource consumption, which can lead to higher costs, diminished profits, and even serious damage to the company’s image.

However, all these shortcomings can easily be avoided through cloud optimization. Specifically, through the continuous optimization of web applications at each critical level.

This article is part of a Cloud Optimization Series where we discuss how you can configure your cloud environment to achieve the best results.

What is cloud optimization?

Every web app is unique, and so are its infrastructure requirements. Plus, these requirements change over time.

Cloud optimization refers to the process of balancing these requirements and allocating the right resources so that an application can run efficiently.

Some of these optimizations can also be automated through AI/ML, with little to no developer intervention. This means fewer resources to manage and a more streamlined infrastructure.

Why should you care about cloud optimization?

There are 3 main reasons why you should care about cloud optimization:

1. Site performance & speed

Web app optimization isn’t just nice to do, but a necessity. 47% of internet users expect websites to load in 2 seconds or less, and 40% will abandon a page that takes 3 or more seconds to load.

An Aberdeen study also found that a 1-second delay in page load time equals 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and 7% loss in conversions.

2. Site ranking & SEO

Your website’s SEO ranking is closely related to its loading speed. There are many factors that contribute to how high or low Google ranks a page (like how much time users spend on it and whether they find what they’re looking for), but among them, page speed is one of the most important.

3. Cost optimization

On one hand, Financial Departments want to keep cloud spend in check. On the other hand, developers want to make sure their apps are always working at 100%, so simply reducing the allocated resources is not an option.

The more complex your web app is, the more resources it will need, and they don’t come cheap. The efficient use of the tools and resources you have at your disposal can translate into savings and overall better management of your IT budget.

The five levels of cloud optimization

Cloud optimization techniques can be applied at each level of the cloud environment. We can, therefore, talk about 5 levels of cloud optimization, one at every level. If you want to dive into each of them, read the full article here.