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Operational Excellence
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- Resources have identified owners
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Security
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Reliability
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- Be aware of service quotas and constraints in Cloud Services
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- Use highly available network connectivity for your workload public endpoints
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- Monitor end-to-end tracing of requests through your system
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- Automate responses (Real-time processing and alarming)
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- Monitor End-to-End Tracing of Requests Through Your System
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Cost Optimization
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- Establish ownership of cost optimization
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- Create a cost-aware culture
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- Perform cost analysis for different usage over time
- Analyze all components of this workload
- Perform a thorough analysis of each component
- Select components of this workload to optimize cost in line with organization priorities
- Perform cost analysis for different usage over time
- Select software with cost effective licensing
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Performance
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- Learn about and understand available cloud services and features
- Evaluate how trade-offs impact customers and architecture efficiency
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- Use purpose-built data store that best support your data access and storage requirements
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- Understand how networking impacts performance
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- Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure workload health and performance
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Sustainability
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- Scale workload infrastructure dynamically
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- Optimize software and architecture for asynchronous and scheduled jobs
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- Remove unneeded or redundant data
- Use technologies that support data access and storage patterns
- Use policies to manage the lifecycle of your datasets
- Use shared file systems or storage to access common data
- Back up data only when difficult to recreate
- Use elasticity and automation to expand block storage or file system
- Minimize data movement across networks
- Implement a data classification policy
- Remove unneeded or redundant data
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- Articles coming soon
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Perform cost analysis for different usage over time
PostedDecember 20, 2024
UpdatedMarch 21, 2025
ByKevin McCaffrey
Evaluating costs effectively requires a thorough analysis of various AWS services across multiple usage scenarios. By conducting this analysis over time and projecting future usage levels, organizations can ensure that they are optimizing their workloads for cost efficiency throughout their lifecycle.
Best Practices
Conduct Regular Cost Analysis
- Implement regular reviews of cost reports from AWS Cost Explorer to understand spending trends on different services. This is important because it helps identify over-provisioned resources and opportunities for cost savings.
- Utilize AWS Budgets to set thresholds for service spending. This aids in proactive financial management and prevents unexpected costs.
- Employ the AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate the costs of various configurations before deployment. This allows for informed decision-making and financial forecasting.
- Incorporate usage patterns and growth projections into your cost analysis. By analyzing historical usage, you can make better-informed choices about service selection that align with expected demand.
- Explore reserved instances or savings plans for services with steady-state usage, as this can significantly reduce costs compared to on-demand pricing.
- Engage with AWS Trusted Advisor to gain insights on your resource configuration and identify cost-saving recommendations related to service selection.
Questions to ask your team
- Have you established a process for regularly reviewing and optimizing service usage based on cost?
- Do you utilize cost estimation tools to predict expenses for various service configurations?
- Are you tracking the historical cost data of services used to identify trends and anomalies?
- Have you set up alerts for spending thresholds to proactively manage costs?
- Do you compare the costs of managed services versus building block services for your specific workloads?
Who should be doing this?
Cloud Financial Analyst
Solutions Architect
What evidence shows this is happening in your organization?
- Cost Analysis Template: A comprehensive template for evaluating the cost of AWS services based on projected usage. It includes sections for inputting service details, usage metrics, and budget forecasts.
- Cost Optimization Report: An in-depth report that analyzes the costs associated with different AWS services over time. It offers insights on usage patterns and recommendations for cost-saving optimizations.
- Cost Evaluation Checklist: A checklist to guide teams through the process of evaluating costs when selecting AWS services, ensuring that all factors are considered for cost optimization.
- Cost Impact Dashboard: An interactive dashboard that visualizes costs related to AWS services and projected usage, helping stakeholders monitor and manage expenses effectively.
- Cost Management Strategy Guide: A strategic guide that outlines best practices for managing and optimizing costs when using AWS services throughout the project’s lifecycle.
Cloud Services
AWS
- AWS Cost Explorer: AWS Cost Explorer helps you visualize your AWS costs and usage over time, allowing for detailed analysis and future projections to ensure cost-effectiveness.
- AWS Budgets: AWS Budgets enables you to set cost and usage budgets that alert you when you exceed thresholds, aiding in ongoing cost management.
- AWS Pricing Calculator: AWS Pricing Calculator allows you to estimate the cost of using different AWS services based on your anticipated usage, helping inform service selection.
- Amazon CloudWatch: Amazon CloudWatch helps monitor resource usage and performance metrics, which can be used to analyze costs and optimize service selection.
Azure
- Azure Cost Management + Billing: Azure Cost Management helps you monitor, allocate, and optimize cloud costs, providing insights into usage and spending.
- Azure Pricing Calculator: The Azure Pricing Calculator enables you to estimate your monthly costs for different services based on expected usage, aiding in planning and budgeting.
Google Cloud Platform
- Google Cloud Billing Reports: Google Cloud Billing Reports provides detailed insights into your cloud costs and trends over time, enabling effective cost evaluations.
- Google Cloud Pricing Calculator: The Google Cloud Pricing Calculator allows you to estimate costs for Google Cloud services based on projected usage, helping in service selection.
Question: How do you evaluate cost when you select services?
Pillar: Cost Optimization (Code: COST)
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