This course provides an introduction to cost management in AWS. It starts by looking at the economics of the cloud in general, including economies of scale and total cost of ownership, and you'll also learn why cost optimization is important.
We'll also cover the AWS Pricing Calculator and the AWS Well-Architected Framework and how these allow you to optimize your AWS environment and also calculate how much it will cost. We round off the course by taking a look at terminology across areas including software development, DevOps, finance, and general AWS terminology.
Learning Objectives
- Get a foundational understanding of cost optimization in AWS
- Learn the fundamentals of cloud economics including economies of scale, total cost of ownership, and why cost optimization is important
- Learn about the AWS pricing calculator
- Learn about the AWS Well-Architected Framework and how it can help to make your AWS environment more efficient and cost-effective
- Understand a range of terminology linked to cost management in AWS
Intended Audience
This course is intended for cloud architects, business management, or anyone looking to manage their costs effectively in AWS.
Prerequisites
To get the most out of this course, you should already have some experience with the AWS platform.
AWS has developed a structure of best practices and strategies when building software in the cloud, called the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
Based on knowledge collected and gained by AWS solution architects and AWS users over the past years it is made to provide strategies and proven concepts for cloud systems.
The framework is based on five pillars that ensure a secure, reliable, efficient, and cost-effective system.
The 5 Pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework - Overview:
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Operational excellence
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aims at constant improvement and efficient managing of workloads, as well as gaining operational insights and continuous improvement of processes and procedures to support business value
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Security
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describes how to protect data, systems, and components using cloud technologies, how user rights and privileges are correctly managed, and how integrity and conformity of information is maintained
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Reliability
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focuses on the ability of a workload to perform correctly and as intended at the expected time. Including quickly recovery and prevention from failures
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Performances and efficiency
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Efficient allocation and right-sizing of computing resources by the system requirements and interception of demand changes
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Cost optimization
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Understanding and controlling expenses, avoiding unnecessary costs, and analyzing spend in detail
Furthermore, AWS provides the AWS Well-Architected Tool, which is based on the framework‘s principals. The tool helps to review the user workloads and compare them to the latest architectural best practices.
In general, the AWS Well-Architected Framework and the tool act as general guidelines that can be used without additional costs.
As a user, you will benefit from free architectural guidance, proven and tested strategies, and best practices directly from AWS for your workloads.
By making use of the AWS Well-Architected Framework and its tool, you can avoid pitfalls and failures by relying on proven strategies and professional practices for your own system, without any additional costs. The framework guarantees you improvements on security, reliability, efficiency, and on the financial end.
Oliver Gehrmann is a FinOps Consultant and CEO of kreuzwerker Frankfurt, a German consulting firm with a strong focus on AWS, software engineering, and cloud financial management. He's worked in IT for over 10 years, facilitating the migration from physical servers in data centers to modern cloud infrastructures.
He and his team have experienced first-hand that costs in the cloud are becoming more and more of a challenge when about 2.5 years ago more and more customers approached them with this topic. Costs ran out of control and could not be addressed to business values.
Since that time, we have worked extensively on the topic of cloud financial management and have already been able to save our customers many millions of dollars. He now shares this knowledge in order to help others.