http://wellarchitectedlabs.com
Cost optimization is a continual process of refinement and improvement of a system over its entire lifecycle. By using these labs, you gain practical experience on how to implement the Cost Optimization best practices and ensure your workloads are Well-Architected.
For more information about cost optimization best practices in the cloud, visit the Well-Architected tool in the AWS console, and read the AWS Well-Architected cost optimization whitepaper.
The first step in your Cost Optimization journey is to setup your account correctly, and get to know the tools and data available for Cost Optimization. These are a collection of labs that are accessible to anyone that will be working with the cloud, including non-technical roles.
Fundamentals covers the following: Account setup, AWS billing console, AWS Budgets, AWS Cost Explorer, Reserved Instances (RIs), Cost and Usage Report (CUR), cost and usage analysis, and cost and usage visualization.
The capability to attribute resource costs to the individual organization or product owners drives efficient usage behavior and helps reduce waste. Awareness broken into three areas:
- Usage Governance
- Monitoring Cost and Usage
- Decommissioning Resources
It covers the following topics: Organizational policies, account structure, groups and roles, cost controls, tracking project lifecycle, cost and usage report, cost attribution categories, organization metrics, tagging, billing and cost management tools, reporting and notification, proactive monitoring, allocating cost, decommissioning process.
Using the appropriate resources for your workload is key to cost savings, this is not only the size and type of resource but may include managed or application level services. Using the best pricing models for the resources/services will also ensure the lowest costs. Cost effective resources consists of:
- Selection of Services
- Resource Type and Size
- Pricing Models
- Data Transfer Charges
It covers the following topics: Organization cost requirements, analyze workload components, cost modeling, resource type and size, pricing models (Reserved Instances, Spot, OnDemand), region cost, data transfer modeling, data transfer services.
Demand on your systems may or may not be predictable, it can also be static or dynamic. By analyzing and understanding your system demand you can supply resources as required to achieve minimal costs:
- Manage Demand and Supply Resources
It covers the following topics: demand analysis, reactive resource provisioning, dynamic resource provisioning (Auto Scaling, buffers).
As AWS releases new services and features, it is a best practice to review your existing architectural decisions to ensure they continue to be the most cost-effective:
- Evaluate new Services
It covers the following topics: evaluating new services.