Unified cloud cost views have transformed reporting efficiency and strengthen customer stickiness
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for CoreStack is for cost optimization and billing operations, and I'm using it a bit for SecOps and CloudOps, but majorly for FinOps and BillOps.
A specific example of how I use CoreStack for FinOps or billing operations is for many of our customers who are running their workload on the cloud; whether AWS, Microsoft Azure, OCI, or Google, everyone is looking for continuous cost optimizations. That is one of the reasons we have opted for CoreStack. It gives a detailed review of the account running in AWS, providing recommendations on reserved instances, saving plans, and orphan volumes. It gives extensive details on the FinOps and the cost optimization, which helps us to optimize the workload for the customer, thus giving us stickiness.
The major thing about my main use case is that we are using CoreStack for BillOps as well, where we give a detailed invoice to the customer with the blended cost, using unblended raw data from AWS and blending it with our margins before sharing the invoices with the customer. While the major use case is FinOps, we also utilize it for BillOps.
What is most valuable?
The best features that CoreStack offers and stand out for me are definitely their well-architected review because they let you run the well-architected review on all the hyper-scalers, which otherwise would require separate UIs or portals for AWS, Azure, OCI, and Google. CoreStack being a single tool that can run the well-architected review on all four clouds gives us an edge over native tools or other options. The second standout feature is the single pane of glass for multi-cloud cost optimization.
The single pane of glass for multi-cloud cost optimization helps me day-to-day by bringing a lot of operational excellence; it saves a lot of time because rather than going to each and every account or multi-cloud portal, which takes a lot of time, having everything on a single pane of glass increases efficiency, delivers results in less time, and provides clear reporting that can be shared with the customer in PDF or CSV formats.
CoreStack has positively impacted my organization by saving hours of time for reporting—for example, the governance report which my employees used to take at least four hours for one customer. Since I'm sending out 20 reports every month, that equates to 80 hours, thus saving me two man-weeks every month. In terms of cost, that's approximately $8,000 pure saving if I estimate $100 an hour for my architect. So, $8,000 a month is at least saved only by reporting, and although things such as customer experience and stickiness are more qualitative, we are certainly saving time and improving customer experience, which overall is pretty good.
What needs improvement?
CoreStack can improve by adding a segregation of reserved instances that are shared across child accounts or managed accounts from the parent account, ensuring a cost allocation for all reserved instances or saving plans purchased in the master account and used by child accounts, as that clear segregation should be readily available within the tool.
I give it an eight because, as I mentioned, a few things from the billing operations need to be added, and we need more security features, particularly since the market is increasingly demanding better security tools for cloud management platforms, including cloud security posture assessments.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using CoreStack for almost four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scalability, we utilize the SaaS platform of CoreStack, and we onboard as an IDP from AWS. We haven't encountered any issues regarding scalability; the SaaS platform easily accommodates our growth, and we have seen no problems at all over the past four years.
How are customer service and support?
CoreStack has positively impacted my organization by saving hours of time for reporting—for example, the governance report which my employees used to take at least four hours for one customer. Since I'm sending out 20 reports every month, that equates to 80 hours, thus saving me two man-weeks every month. In terms of cost, that's approximately $8,000 pure saving if I estimate $100 an hour for my architect. So, $8,000 a month is at least saved only by reporting, and although things such as customer experience and stickiness are more qualitative, we are certainly saving time and improving customer experience, which overall is pretty good.
We receive wonderful support from CoreStack. We have plenty of content that helps us improve our MSP strategy and achieve customer stickiness, so the support has been pretty good.
Customer support is wonderful; we have a dedicated account manager, and we can easily reach out to them or to a solution architect. With multiple support avenues aligned to us as a partner, we receive very responsive and helpful support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used a native solution and opted to switch to CoreStack because we wanted a single pane of glass for multi-cloud management that also encompassed SecOps, CloudOps, and BillOps. The native solution offered fewer features and involved more operational overhead, prompting the switch.
What was our ROI?
I have definitely seen a return on investment; it is measurable. It has saved hours of time for the reporting, especially the governance report, which my employees needed four hours to prepare for one customer. With 20 reports every month, that's 80 hours saved, equating to two man-weeks per month, or $8,000 in savings based on a $100 hourly rate for my architect. Thus, we save a lot of time on reporting, and while customer experience gains are more qualitative, we are improving stickiness and experiences overall, which is pretty good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is pretty good because we received private pricing, which I cannot disclose. The setup was included as a one-time expense, and licensing is straightforward, mostly based on consumption, which I believe has been competitively priced across the market.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing CoreStack, we did evaluate other options such as Aquila Cloud and AnOps back in 2021, and CoreStack emerged as the more feature-rich and mature solution.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for others looking into using CoreStack is to recognize that it is a wonderful product, and if you choose to use it, leverage its full potential. Do not limit yourself to just FinOps; explore all its features, including BillOps, SecOps, CloudOps, and especially security governance. Evaluate everything across all four hyper-scalers, and you are likely to love it.
My company does not have a business relationship with CoreStack beyond being a customer; we are not even a reseller. However, we operate in the MSP model, onboarding the product to use CoreStack for our end customers. So while we are customers, we primarily utilize it in a managed services capacity.
I give this review a rating of eight. We have covered almost everything regarding CoreStack.
Cost reports have driven accurate AWS workload optimization and continue to guide savings
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for CoreStack involves using FinOps services primarily for cost optimization for our end customer AWS workload usage.
A specific example of how I use CoreStack for cost optimization is that we monitor CoreStack reports. When CoreStack generates a report to optimize the workload while purchasing cost compute saving options, it can potentially save our customer cost.
What is most valuable?
The best features CoreStack offers are primarily the recommendations for cost optimization for RDS and EC2 machines.
I have found the recommendations for cost optimization to be accurate and actionable for RDS and EC2 machines. We received multiple recommendations from CoreStack over time that potentially generate cost savings to the workload running in AWS.
CoreStack has positively impacted my organization through the recommendations it provides for cost optimization. It generally tracks on a 30-day basis, and I expect it to generate reports on at least a half-yearly or quarterly basis.
What needs improvement?
I can suggest improvements for CoreStack, especially regarding reporting periods. I noticed that some of the cost optimization reports generated potential savings while considering systems that have only maximum utilization of 1% or 2%. The recommendations made in CoreStack to delete a machine have the potential to generate major cost savings, but such machines should not be listed for deletion if they have maximum CPU utilization of 1%.
I have concerns about needed improvements primarily regarding AWS. If a customer is running ten virtual machines and one machine has a maximum of 1% utilization, it is considered as an idle instance in the report, which completely ignores that particular machine. This should not be the approach.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using CoreStack for almost four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
CoreStack's scalability is optimal since it does not require scalability to be very precise, given that it is a SaaS service. It generates and captures metrics of your workload, which meets our requirements all the time and is always available from the service perspective.
How are customer service and support?
I have interacted with CoreStack's customer support, and we managed to obtain a technical demo from their team for my team from time to time.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before CoreStack, I used Akila. The reason for switching from Akila was that we were using it for billing services, and we were looking for a FinOps tool, which CoreStack managed to provide with competency in FinOps services. That is one of the reasons we moved from Akila to CoreStack.
How was the initial setup?
Since implementing CoreStack, the outcomes and metrics we have seen include quick implementation since it only requires the association of AWS workload accounts. I do not see any challenge with the integration of CoreStack.
What about the implementation team?
We are a partner with CoreStack and did not purchase it through the AWS Marketplace.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with CoreStack. It generates value addition on top of the Trusted Advisor report, which saves major effort for our resources. It is absolutely a value addition while looking at bringing down the cost of a workload.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is straightforward and has flexible pricing based on workload consumption. I am satisfied with the cost model.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate other options before choosing CoreStack, although we used others such as Akila before.
What other advice do I have?
I would like to add that CoreStack should cover other hyperscalers as well.
I rate CoreStack 9 out of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. I chose 9 out of 10 because of the few missing features that I am looking for that are not available.
My advice for others looking into using CoreStack is that anyone who is looking to optimize their workload cost for public cloud services should start using CoreStack because of the reports and granularity it produces to optimize cost, which will benefit them.
Overall, I am satisfied with CoreStack. I feel that it is doing phenomenal work. However, it should improve by producing more value addition in its services and offering more granularity toward the reports as outcomes for cost optimization, including bringing in more artifacts toward those reports.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
We have great expereince with Corestack and happy to use for WAFR and Finops features.
What do you like best about the product?
I most like the feature to provide recommendations for FinOps/SecOps
What do you dislike about the product?
It is unidirectional to sync with AWS and some of the lenses like FTR need to include.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We primarily use Corestack For Well Architecture framework review and cost optimization for our clients.
Great Platform for Cloud Governance!
What do you like best about the product?
To have all the cloud governance information and tools on one portal is great.
Customer Support is also great
What do you dislike about the product?
We are in the process of working with Corestack team to improve User Experience over Well Architected Reviews Reports.. in order to provide a better online review with customers and adapting the assessments to AWS requirements for 2024
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Automating Well Architected Reviews
Finops Program
Good platform for cloud support
What do you like best about the product?
Ease of getting cost reports and inventory of AWS.
What do you dislike about the product?
scope of improvement in terms of tagging of resources.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It is helping in getting cost optimizing recommendations.
Recommend Corestack to others!!!
What do you like best about the product?
The approach and availability of the team whenever we need. They are flexible and supportive.
What do you dislike about the product?
We understand that there is a plan to implement hybrid technologies for account management and multi-tenancy, which will have the capability to integrate with respective Active Directory (AD). This feature is currently missing in the platform.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We would like to solve FinOps, SecOps, and CloudOps for our customers.
A Powerful Platform for Cloud Management Services
What do you like best about the product?
A strong complement of multicloud features coupled with a support organization that goes above and beyond.
What do you dislike about the product?
The UI and reporting capabilities, while improving rapidly, are still behind the curve compared to the leading vendors in the space.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
CoreStack is used to provide single- and multi-cloud cost optimization services to our customers along with security and compliance assessments. With it, we have been able to save customers significant amounts of money and offer greater assurance that their cloud infrastructure is well managed, efficient, and compliant.
Amazing product to manage with ease
What do you like best about the product?
User friendly and covered most of the features we need
What do you dislike about the product?
No specific information to mention about this product
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Centralised management
Excellent Multi-cloud platform with effective automated Compliance Standards
What do you like best about the product?
We are using Corestack for Compliance. It helps us to get automated compliance output with no time, and we can run frequently.
What do you dislike about the product?
I do not see much to dislike the product.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Corestack is multi-cloud governance tool. It helps us to get compliant for our multi-cloud use.
Excellent Product for Managing Multiple Cloud Accounts
What do you like best about the product?
User-friendly Dashboard that shows the consolidated posture of all my accounts across clouds
What do you dislike about the product?
UI can be much more conversational and intuitive
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We were able to save more than 40% on our average cloud costs
