AWS Cost Optimization That Will Take You to Cloud Nine

From increased collaboration features and higher availability to access to more computing resources, whatever the reason your organization made a move to the cloud, dialing in your deployment is certainly not an overnight task.

To help their customers get the most of their Amazon Web Services (AWS) experience, Amazon has outlined best practices for building and operating in the cloud, forming pillars that help enable a well-architected framework.

One pillar that gets the most attention is AWS cost optimization—and this is for good reason. Organizations are always seeking to find the perfect balance between performance and cost.

So just what does AWS cost optimization entail, and what can it mean for your business?

How AWS Cost Optimization Works

As the name suggests, AWS cost optimization is about helping organizations develop and implement a strategy for maximizing their cloud investment while ensuring that their costs are effectively managed.

While there are other elements to AWS cost optimization, the main focus of the approach surrounds design principles that can help organizations find the right balance between usage and availability using structured metrics to help dial in their deployment.

The five design principles for cost optimization in the cloud are:

• Implement cloud financial management: Invest in the technology, staff, and processes to capture costs and monitor trends.

• Adopt a consumption model: Refine your computing resources that you use and pay for to streamline costs based on business requirements.

• Measure overall efficiency: Identify metrics to monitor workload and costs and measure progress over time.

• Stop spending money on undifferentiated heavy lifting: Lean more on your AWS provider to handle the complex data center operations so your team can focus more on strategic efforts.

These principles can then be used to change even the most fundamental of your technology infrastructure operations. For example, an organization can identify which services are needed when as well as which services may not be delivering as much value given their costs. 

Taking this example further, underperforming systems can then be decommissioned while those that are only used during business hours are only turned on during those periods. 

How AWS Cost Optimization Principles Can Benefit Your Business

Many organizations budget for their usage needs and, in turn, their costs based on forecasts and projections. 

However, utilizing these AWS cost optimization principles can instead give your organization the ability to truly understand how many computing resources you need so you can streamline your costs. 

These same principles can then be applied as your business needs change and scale, helping your organization to monitor, measure, and control costs as you evolve in a measured way. 

As a result, your organization will be able to precisely identify and prioritize the tools, resources, processes, and configurations that your business truly needs to operate while also better managing your costs and maximizing your IT spend.

Start Your AWS Cost Optimization Journey With Think|Stack

Whether you are just beginning your cloud journey or your organization is beginning a deep dive into your AWS deployment, it’s always a good time to consider the benefits of the AWS cost optimization principles.

Fortunately, you don’t have to perform an evaluation of your organization’s alignment with the AWS cost optimization best practices and develop an implementation plan on your own. A trusted cloud partner such as Think|Stack can help your team through every step of the process and navigate common hurdles.

Interested in knowing how well your organization aligns with the AWS cost optimization principles and want to get onto the fast track to finding your own performance sweet spot? Then make sure to contact the pros at Think|Stack. You can also discover your cloud readiness by taking our free three-minute assessment here.