Definition

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

• Cost-effective resources

• Matching supply and demand

• Expenditure awareness

• Optimizing over time

As with the other pillars, there are tradeoffs to consider. For example, do you want to optimize for speed to market or for cost? In some cases, it’s best to optimize for speed—going to market quickly, shipping new features, or simply meeting a deadline—rather than investing in upfront cost optimization.

Design decisions are sometimes guided by haste as opposed to empirical data, as the temptation always exists to overcompensate “just in case” rather than spend time benchmarking for the most cost-optimal deployment.

This often leads to drastically over-provisioned and under-optimized deployments. The following sections provide techniques and strategic guidance for the initial and ongoing cost optimization of your deployment