The agility of cloud computing delivers immense business value. However, convenience comes at a cost reflected in monthly bills that can quickly spiral out of control without careful governance. Mastering cloud cost optimization and efficiency is pivotal to maximize returns on AWS investment.
This guide covers proven techniques including:
- Enforcing Cloud Financial Discipline
- Architecting for Cost Efficiency
- Right Sizing AWS Resources
- Auto Scaling for Usage Elasticity
- Reserved Instance Strategies
- Utilizing AWS Savings Plans
- Leveraging EC2 Spot Instances
- Getting Granular Cloud Cost Visibility
- Setting Policy-driven Resource Optimization
- Creating Shared Accountability for Cloud Costs
Equipped with this playbook, you can tame runaway expenses to fully harness the innovative potential of AWS. Let’s get started!
Enforcing Cloud Financial Discipline
Migrating to the variable costs of cloud computing requires adapting financial management through governance measures like:
● Institute spending authorization gates using AWS Service Quotas
● Set granular usage alerts tied directly to live billing data
● Enforce mandatory tagging policies on resources
● Build cross functional cloud governance teams
● Democratize visibility to empower all teams to optimize resources
Architecting for Cost Efficiency
Certain architecture patterns achieve vastly better cost-performance on AWS:
Leverage Serverless by Default
Embrace serverless offerings like Lambda, AppSync and DynamoDB to eliminate paying for idle capacity when workloads vary. Only pay for actual compute consumed.
Decompose Monoliths into Microservices
Avoids overprovisioning for functions rarely used. Granularly scale only what is needed moment to moment across isolated services vs the one size fits all approach.
Rebuild Systems through Code
Immutable infrastructure makes scaling easier through templates instead of accumulating stateful servers requiring maintenance. This “cattle vs pets” approach facilitates management at cloud scale.
Right Sizing AWS Resources
A major pitfall is oversized instances, databases and overprovisioned serverless infrastructure wasting money from unused capacity paid for. Right size by:
● Monitoring usage to derive realistic resource needs
● Resizing instances to increase utilization
● Consolidating workloads onto larger instances where possible
● Load testing and benchmarking to optimize capacity
Auto Scaling for Usage Elasticity
Instead of provisioning for peak capacity upfront, auto-scale resources aligned to actual user demand to maximize savings:
● Configure scaling policies based on metrics
● Scale out capacity during demand spikes
● Scale in to shut off unused capacity during troughs
● Pay only for active computing needed minute to minute
Reserved Instance Strategies
For steady state usage of RDS, Redshift or predictable EC2 instances, Reserved Capacity offers discounts up to 75% over on-demand billing rates via 1 to 5 year payment terms. Balance RIs, auto-scaling and Spot instances.
Utilizing AWS Savings Plans
Commit to consistent use of services like EC2, Lambda and Fargate over 1 – 3 years and Savings Plans provide discounted rates up to 72% automatically when used. No instance specific commitments required.
Leveraging EC2 Spot Instances
Leverage unused EC2 capacity available in the Spot Market at discounts over 90%. Set max price thresholds then access additional capacity for fault tolerant workloads where interruptions are acceptable.
Getting Granular Cloud Cost Visibility
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure” rings true for cloud costs. Get granular through:
● Cost and usage analytics across multiple dimensions
● Budgets with custom alerts to notify on thresholds
● Reserved Instance utilization tracking
● Amortized cost comparison across pricing models
This reveals optimization areas prompting action.
Setting Policy-driven Resource Optimization
Manual oversight struggles with cloud scale and complexity. Policy driven automation eliminates waste by:
● Shutting down inactive resources past set time thresholds
● Terminating forgotten stale resources
● Alerting on launch configs violating governance
● Continuously validating security settings across environments
Rules supplement human judgment for continuous optimization.
Creating Shared Accountability for Cloud Costs
Broadening transparency creates accountability:
● Charge back reports matching spend to departments
● Granular resource tagging attributing utilization
● User level visibility into consumption data
● Threshold alerts on billing spikes
● Empowering teams to optimize their resources
Circulating data prompts responsibility for controlling expenses.
Conclusion
Mastering cloud cost management is pivotal to maximize ROI on AWS and sustain innovation velocity. Consistent implementation of financial governance, architectural strategies, improved visibility and continuous optimization builds competency.
Policies should be tied closely to overall cloud governance. As business in the cloud evolves, so should cost optimization practices – a process, not a one time project. Equipping teams across the organization is key to lasting cultural shifts.
