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Operational Excellence
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- Resources have identified owners
- Processes and procedures have identified owners
- Operations activities have identified owners responsible for their performance
- Team members know what they are responsible for
- Mechanisms exist to identify responsibility and ownership
- Mechanisms exist to request additions, changes, and exceptions
- Responsibilities between teams are predefined or negotiated
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- Executive Sponsorship
- Team members are empowered to take action when outcomes are at risk
- Escalation is encouraged
- Communications are timely, clear, and actionable
- Experimentation is encouraged
- Team members are encouraged to maintain and grow their skill sets
- Resource teams appropriately
- Diverse opinions are encouraged and sought within and across teams
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- Use version control
- Test and validate changes
- Use configuration management systems
- Use build and deployment management systems
- Perform patch management
- Implement practices to improve code quality
- Share design standards
- Use multiple environments
- Make frequent, small, reversible changes
- Fully automate integration and deployment
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- Have a process for continuous improvement
- Perform post-incident analysis
- Implement feedback loops
- Perform knowledge management
- Define drivers for improvement
- Validate insights
- Perform operations metrics reviews
- Document and share lessons learned
- Allocate time to make improvements
- Perform post-incident analysis
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Security
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- Separate workloads using accounts
- Secure account root user and properties
- Identify and validate control objectives
- Keep up-to-date with security recommendations
- Keep up-to-date with security threats
- Identify and prioritize risks using a threat model
- Automate testing and validation of security controls in pipelines
- Evaluate and implement new security services and features regularly
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- Define access requirements
- Grant least privilege access
- Define permission guardrails for your organization
- Manage access based on life cycle
- Establish emergency access process
- Share resources securely within your organization
- Reduce permissions continuously
- Share resources securely with a third party
- Analyze public and cross-account access
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- Perform regular penetration testing
- Deploy software programmatically
- Regularly assess security properties of the pipelines
- Train for Application Security
- Automate testing throughout the development and release lifecycle
- Manual Code Reviews
- Centralize services for packages and dependencies
- Build a program that embeds security ownership in workload teams
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Reliability
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- Be aware of service quotas and constraints in Cloud Services
- Manage service quotas across accounts and Regions
- Accommodate fixed service quotas and constraints through architecture
- Monitor and manage quotas
- Automate quota management
- Ensure sufficient gap between quotas and usage to accommodate failover
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- Use highly available network connectivity for your workload public endpoints
- Provision Redundant Connectivity Between Private Networks in the Cloud and On-Premises Environments
- Ensure IP subnet allocation accounts for expansion and availability
- Prefer hub-and-spoke topologies over many-to-many mesh
- Enforce non-overlapping private IP address ranges in all private address spaces where they are connected
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- Monitor end-to-end tracing of requests through your system
- Conduct reviews regularly
- Analytics
- Automate responses (Real-time processing and alarming)
- Send notifications (Real-time processing and alarming)
- Define and calculate metrics (Aggregation)
- Monitor End-to-End Tracing of Requests Through Your System
- Define and calculate metrics
- Send notifications
- Automate responses
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- Monitor all components of the workload to detect failures
- Fail over to healthy resources
- Automate healing on all layers
- Rely on the data plane and not the control plane during recovery
- Use static stability to prevent bimodal behavior
- Send notifications when events impact availability
- Architect your product to meet availability targets and uptime service level agreements (SLAs)
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Cost Optimization
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- Establish ownership of cost optimization
- Establish a partnership between finance and technology
- Establish cloud budgets and forecasts
- Implement cost awareness in your organizational processes
- Monitor cost proactively
- Keep up-to-date with new service releases
- Quantify business value from cost optimization
- Report and notify on cost optimization
- 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
- Use guidance from your cloud provider or an appropriate partner to learn about architecture patterns and best practices
- Factor cost into architectural decisions
- Use policies and reference architectures
- Use benchmarking to drive architectural decisions
- Use a data-driven approach for architectural choices
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- Use purpose-built data store that best support your data access and storage requirements
- Collect and record data store performance metrics
- Evaluate available configuration options for data store
- Implement Strategies to Improve Query Performance in Data Store
- Implement data access patterns that utilize caching
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- Understand how networking impacts performance
- Evaluate available networking features
- Choose appropriate dedicated connectivity or VPN for your workload
- Use load balancing to distribute traffic across multiple resources
- Choose network protocols to improve performance
- Choose your workload's location based on network requirements
- Optimize network configuration based on metrics
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- Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure workload health and performance
- Use monitoring solutions to understand the areas where performance is most critical
- Define a process to improve workload performance
- Review metrics at regular intervals
- Load test your workload
- Use automation to proactively remediate performance-related issues
- Keep your workload and services up-to-date
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Sustainability
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- Scale workload infrastructure dynamically
- Align SLAs with sustainability goals
- Optimize geographic placement of workloads based on their networking requirements
- Stop the creation and maintenance of unused assets
- Optimize team member resources for activities performed
- Implement buffering or throttling to flatten the demand curve
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- Optimize software and architecture for asynchronous and scheduled jobs
- Remove or refactor workload components with low or no use
- Optimize areas of code that consume the most time or resources
- Optimize impact on devices and equipment
- Use software patterns and architectures that best support data access and storage patterns
- 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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Keep up-to-date with new service releases
PostedDecember 20, 2024
UpdatedMarch 21, 2025
ByKevin McCaffrey
Staying informed about new AWS service releases helps organizations leverage cost-efficient solutions that can optimize usage and drive savings. Regularly consulting with experts ensures that you are taking advantage of the latest offerings in cloud technology.
Best Practices
Stay Informed About New AWS Services and Features
- Regularly review updates on AWS services to understand new cost-effective options available to you.
- Follow AWS blogs, webinars, and newsletters to receive insights about new releases and features that could reduce costs.
- Engage with AWS experts or certified partners to obtain tailored recommendations and strategies on leveraging the latest tools and services.
- Utilize AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets to track your actual usage against new services, allowing you to assess potential savings.
- Participate in AWS events and forums to share insights and learn from peers about cost optimization techniques.
Questions to ask your team
- How often do you review AWS service updates and new features?
- Do you have a process in place to evaluate and incorporate new services that could reduce costs?
- Are team members trained to monitor AWS blogs and other resources for cost-saving opportunities?
- How do you engage with AWS experts or partners to stay informed about cost optimization techniques?
- Have you implemented tools or dashboards to track cost changes related to new service releases?
Who should be doing this?
Cloud Financial Manager
- Monitor and track AWS service updates and new releases.
- Evaluate the cost implications of new services and features.
- Consult regularly with AWS experts or partners for advice on cost optimization.
- Identify lower-cost services and features that align with business needs.
- Stay informed through AWS blogs and newsletters to leverage opportunities for cost savings.
- Facilitate training sessions for team members on new services and cost management strategies.
AWS Solutions Architect
- Assess the technical requirements and benefits of new AWS services.
- Advise on integrating new services into existing architectures to optimize costs.
- Collaborate with the Cloud Financial Manager to align financial goals with technical solutions.
- Participate in regular reviews of service usage and cost efficiency assessments.
Finance Analyst
- Analyze financial performance and trends related to cloud spend.
- Provide insights and forecasts on budget allocation for cloud services.
- Support the Cloud Financial Manager in developing financial reports and dashboards.
- Assist in tracking the effectiveness of cost optimization initiatives based on service updates.
What evidence shows this is happening in your organization?
- AWS Services Update Dashboard: A centralized dashboard that highlights the latest AWS service releases and updates, allowing teams to quickly identify new lower-cost services and features.
- Cloud Financial Management Checklist: A detailed checklist for teams to follow, ensuring regular consultation with AWS experts and partners to stay informed about cost optimization opportunities and service updates.
- Best Practices Guide for Cost Optimization: A comprehensive guide outlining best practices for implementing cloud financial management, including strategies for staying updated on service releases and effectively utilizing new features.
- Monthly Financial Review Reports: Reports generated monthly that summarize findings from consultations with AWS partners, new service evaluations, and recommendations for optimizing costs based on the latest releases.
- Service Release Notification Policy: A policy document that mandates the regular review of AWS service announcements and updates, ensuring the organization is proactive in leveraging cost-effective services.
Cloud Services
AWS
- AWS Cost Explorer: Allows you to visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time.
- AWS Budgets: Helps you set custom cost and usage budgets that alert you when you exceed your thresholds.
- AWS Pricing Calculator: Enables you to estimate your AWS costs and make informed decisions on service usage.
- AWS Trusted Advisor: Provides recommendations on cost optimization, including underutilized resources and opportunities to save.
Azure
- Azure Cost Management + Billing: Helps you monitor your cloud spending and manage your budgets and costs across Azure services.
- Azure Pricing Calculator: Allows you to estimate the costs of Azure products and compare pricing with AWS and GCP.
Google Cloud Platform
- Google Cloud Billing: Enables you to analyze your cost behavior and forecasting for your Google Cloud projects.
- Google Cloud Pricing Calculator: Helps you estimate your costs for Google Cloud services based on your anticipated usage.
Question: How do you implement cloud financial management?
Pillar: Cost Optimization (Code: COST)
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