How to Cut Cloud Costs Without a Risky 3-Year Bet

TECH INSTINCT PODCAST | EPISODE 12

Cloud discounts can come with a catch: one- or three-year commitments that may no longer make sense when workloads, infrastructure needs, or AI usage change.

In this episode of Tech Instinct, MicroAge’s Rick Trujillo talks with Nikhil Khanna, CTO and co-founder of Archera, about how companies can reduce cloud costs without taking on unnecessary long-term risk. They discuss Reserved Instances and Savings Plans across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud, why cloud commitments can create problems for both customers and partners, and how Archera uses insured commitments to give customers access to cloud savings with terms as short as 30 days. They also cover the coming changes to Azure Reservation Exchanges, the growing cost of GPUs and AI workloads, and why token pricing could become one of the biggest cloud cost issues heading into 2027.

If you’re responsible for cloud infrastructure, FinOps, IT strategy, or managing customer cloud spend, this conversation offers a practical look at how cloud cost optimization is changing.