Definition

There are five best practice areas for cost optimization in the cloud:

• Practice Cloud Financial Management

• Expenditure and usage awareness

• Cost-effective resources

• Manage demand and supply resources

• Optimize over time

As with the other pillars within the Well-Architected Framework, there are tradeoffs to consider, for example, whether to optimize for speed-to-market or for cost. In some cases, it’s more efficient to optimize for speed, going to market quickly, shipping new features, or meeting a deadline, rather than investing in upfront cost optimization. Design decisions are sometimes directed by haste rather than data, and the temptation always exists to overcompensate “just in case” rather than spend time benchmarking for the most cost-optimal deployment. This might lead to over-provisioned and under-optimized deployments. However, this is a reasonable choice when you must “lift and shift” resources from your on-premises environment to the cloud and then optimize afterwards. Investing the right amount of effort in a cost optimization strategy up front permits you to realize the economic benefits of the cloud more readily by achieving a consistent adherence to best practices and avoiding unnecessary over provisioning. The following sections provide techniques and best practices for both the initial and ongoing implementation of Cloud Financial Management and cost optimization of your workloads.