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Choose Regions based on cost

Identifying regional cost differences is essential in optimizing expenses in AWS deployments. By strategically selecting lower-cost regions, organizations can leverage pricing variances, ensuring they operate at the most economical level while still meeting performance and compliance requirements.

Best Practices

Optimize Resource Deployment by Choosing Cost-Effective Regions

  • Conduct a pricing analysis of AWS services across different regions to identify cost variances.
  • Deploy workloads in lower-cost regions when latency, data residency, and data sovereignty requirements allow it.
  • Regularly review and reassess regional pricing as AWS occasionally alters pricing structures, which may present new opportunities for savings.
  • Utilize AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate costs based on different regional deployments under varying usage patterns.
  • Implement tagging for resources by region to effectively track costs and usage trends across different deployments.

Questions to ask your team

  • Have you evaluated the cost differences between regions for your current workloads?
  • Are you aware of any latency, data residency, or data sovereignty issues that might affect regional deployments?
  • Have you implemented monitoring to compare costs across different regions?
  • Are you continually reassessing your region choices as pricing changes or new AWS services become available?
  • Can you demonstrate how deploying in a lower-cost region has positively impacted your overall expenditure?

Who should be doing this?

Cloud Architect

  • Evaluate and recommend suitable AWS regions based on cost-efficiency for workloads.
  • Analyze regional pricing differences and establish criteria for selecting regions.
  • Ensure deployment decisions take into account latency, data residency, and data sovereignty requirements.
  • Collaborate with finance and operations teams to align cost optimization strategies with overall business objectives.

FinOps Analyst

  • Monitor and report on cloud spending across different regions.
  • Identify opportunities for cost savings based on regional pricing variations.
  • Provide insights and data to cloud architects to inform region selection.
  • Assist in developing policies and guidelines for deploying resources in cost-effective regions.

DevOps Engineer

  • Implement infrastructure deployment based on the selected regions to optimize costs.
  • Automate region selection in CI/CD pipelines where applicable.
  • Ensure compliance with latency and data requirements during deployments.
  • Monitor performance to validate that cost optimizations do not compromise system efficiency.

What evidence shows this is happening in your organization?

  • Cost Optimization Strategy Template: A template for organizations to outline and implement strategies for choosing lower-cost AWS Regions based on pricing models.
  • Regional Cost Comparison Report: A detailed report analyzing costs across different AWS Regions to identify the lowest-cost options for deployments.
  • Cost-Aware Deployment Checklist: A checklist to ensure that teams consider regional cost factors when planning and deploying AWS workloads.
  • Cloud Cost Dashboard: An interactive dashboard that visualizes spending patterns across AWS Regions, allowing for easy identification of cost-effective regions.
  • Pricing Model Guidelines Guide: A guide detailing best practices for selecting pricing models and regions to optimize costs while meeting workload requirements.

Cloud Services

AWS

  • AWS Pricing Calculator: Helps estimate the cost of your AWS services based on your specific configurations and usage patterns.
  • AWS Cost Explorer: Allows you to analyze your historical spending, forecast future costs, and identify areas where you can optimize your AWS usage and spending.
  • AWS Budgets: Enables you to set custom cost and usage budgets that alert you when you exceed your thresholds.

Azure

Google Cloud Platform

Question: How do you use pricing models to reduce cost?
Pillar: Cost Optimization (Code: COST)

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