Egress charges and hidden networking costs
Most companies underestimate cloud costs because they don’t fully understand how cloud networking works. Moving your data into the cloud? That’s the easy part. The big cloud providers, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, they’ll practically roll out the red carpet for it. They’ll even subsidize your migration costs because it gets your workloads onto their platform. But once you’re in their ecosystem, getting your data out, retrieving it back or moving it elsewhere, that’s where you start paying real money. That’s called an egress charge.
Egress charges are often not even noticed until you audit your usage. The issue escalates when applications are not built for cloud environments. Many of these so-called “chatty” applications are programmed to frequently ping the cloud, pulling and pushing data relentlessly. Every one of those network requests costs money. If you’re operating in a hybrid setup, part of your infrastructure on-premises and part in the cloud, you’re guaranteed to see constant data flows across boundaries. That means constant egress fees.
Andre Kindness, Principal Analyst at Forrester, breaks it down: unless your entire operation lives in the cloud, you’re going to have data moving in and out. That motion triggers charges. It’s not an error in usage; it’s a design flaw in cloud architecture and cost planning.
For decision-makers, here’s the takeaway: stop looking at cloud migration as a one-time project. You’re investing in a dynamic platform where the operating costs are decided by how intelligently your network is designed. Poor networking design, or simply ignoring it during cloud planning, drives up long-term expenses.
Data optimization starts at the architecture level. Review how your apps interact with the cloud. Reassess workload behavior. Don’t let latent network noise drain your budget. Enterprise leaders who get this right early, who integrate their networking and cloud strategies, stay cost-efficient, agile, and in control. The ones who don’t find themselves in the exact situation this Forrester report highlights: surprised by the invoice.
Misconfigured cloud networks driving waste and cyber risks
Misconfigurations are common. And that’s a problem, because misconfigured cloud networks do two things very well: waste money and increase your exposure to attacks.
Companies spend heavily on cloud resources, compute, storage, bandwidth, but too many don’t know how those resources are being used in real time. When network settings are wrong, like traffic routing errors, access rule gaps, or unused but active resources, you create inefficiencies in how data moves. That inefficiency translates into higher usage charges. You start paying for network traffic that shouldn’t exist and compute you’re not even utilizing.
Stacklet’s report, based on a survey of 315 cloud and FinOps professionals, confirms this. Nearly half of them (49%) said misconfiguration was a frequent driver of waste. That’s a systemic problem caused by lacking real-time visibility and policy-driven network governance.
Now, let’s go deeper. The cost of poor configuration isn’t just financial, it’s operational and reputational. Google Cloud’s 2024 Threat Horizons report showed that nearly one-third of malicious intrusions into cloud environments started from misconfigured networks. These are breaches stemming from exactly the kind of oversight that should have been eliminated earlier in the architecture review or deployment process.
Here’s what matters to a CEO or CIO: misconfiguration is a direct business risk. It indicates weak enforcement of cloud policy, unclear infrastructure ownership, and insufficient automation. Manual setups break under scale. Static policies don’t adapt to active threats. Without governance tailored for scalable architectures, your systems are exposed, and you’re overspending.
Address this at both a technical and strategic layer. Deploy config management tools that enforce standards automatically. Create accountability between operations and security for maintaining cloud posture. Audit your digital plumbing, not just once, but continuously.
If you’re serious about extracting full value from your cloud investment, configuration hygiene isn’t optional. It’s table stakes.
Organizational disconnect between networking and cloud engineering teams
Most organizations don’t have a technology problem, they have a communication problem. Your infrastructure teams and your cloud teams are not aligned, and that’s driving inefficiencies you can’t afford.
Cloud strategy means making sure the people who build systems, the people who secure them, and the people who manage data traffic actually collaborate. Right now, those roles are too often isolated. According to Forrester Principal Analyst Andre Kindness, networking professionals are rarely included in key cloud planning decisions. That oversight results in flawed system design, fragmented security enforcement, and unnecessary operating costs.
When networking engineers aren’t brought into cloud architectural conversations, two things happen. First, you increase the risk of costly misconfigurations. That leads to inefficient routing, unnecessary egress, or weak access controls. Second, you lose the institutional knowledge needed to balance performance with cost, design with scale, and speed with security. You’re making short-term decisions without factoring long-term viability.
This type of misalignment creates friction at the operational layer, and friction drives waste. Applications can get deployed without proper traffic controls. Data can move across regions or systems without economic planning. Security issues go unflagged because no one is looking at the system holistically. You start operating in reactive mode, where every cost spike or vulnerability becomes an emergency.
For executives, the path forward is clear: align your teams up front. Create shared accountability in cloud decision-making. App development, infrastructure, and networking need to operate as a unified loop, not as separate inputs. Strategic cloud investment demands coordination at the planning stage, not after production outages or security breaches show up on reports.
If your cloud projects are driving up costs or failing audits, the issue tools, roles and processes. Fix that, and you remove complexity, reduce risk, and optimize spending. The companies that scale efficiently are not the ones with the most software, they’re the ones with the tightest operational alignment.
Key takeaways for leaders
- Egress costs demand strategic architecture: Cloud savings are often undercut by underestimated egress charges triggered by frequent data transfers. Leaders should ensure networking architecture is designed to minimize outbound data movement, particularly in hybrid environments.
- Misconfiguration risks require automated controls: Nearly half of cloud spend waste and one-third of breaches trace back to poor network configurations. Executives should invest in automated configuration management and continuous monitoring to reduce both cost and risk exposure.
- Cross-functional alignment improves cloud ROI: Disconnected cloud and networking teams lead to inefficiencies, security gaps, and rising operational costs. Leaders should unify cloud decision-making across development, security, and infrastructure to optimize performance and spending.
