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Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

tuananh.net

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Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#21

Post by anotherhue »

Salgat wrote: post #9
thefourthchime wrote: post #4

I've mentioned this before, in my company (big media company) I saw some S3 costs creeping up each month. I looked into it and it was a system we abandoned that was still copying files to this bucket. I reached out to the team and they turned it off, it saved us $1m a year. The higher-ups rewarded me by telling me that a team should have caught this so I should meet with them now.

It's truly fascinating how companies won't bat at an eye at spending ungodly amounts of money on things they don't need, but will sweat profusely at the thought of a tiny fraction of that going towards additional compensation.

Enriching AWS does not threaten their social standing.

Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#22

Post by dangus »

darth_avocado wrote: post #16

It is unfortunate that cost management isn’t something most engineers keep an eye out for on a regular basis. Spinning up unnecessary resources, not cleaning up resources properly once not needed, writing inefficient code, etc. all quickly adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in big companies. I once found a “test” db cluster from an engineer who hadn’t worked in the company for 3 years. We were payi…

Well, it’s definitely fathomable. Does my employer have cost control baked into their proceses, tooling, and culture or are they rushing me to get projects out the door leaving barely enough time to make sure they’re production-ready?

Most places I’ve worked had no formal production readiness review before launching infrastructure.

Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#23

Post by lnxg33k1 »

darth_avocado wrote: post #16

It is unfortunate that cost management isn’t something most engineers keep an eye out for on a regular basis. Spinning up unnecessary resources, not cleaning up resources properly once not needed, writing inefficient code, etc. all quickly adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in big companies. I once found a “test” db cluster from an engineer who hadn’t worked in the company for 3 years. We were payi…

I get paid the same whether or not I spend time going around to save company cost, it’s not like they’re going to share their savings, then shareholders get their juice, management gets their juice and Im the clown who went out of my way for them, who cares I do software not cost management

Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#24

Post by pjc50 »

darth_avocado wrote: post #16

It is unfortunate that cost management isn’t something most engineers keep an eye out for on a regular basis. Spinning up unnecessary resources, not cleaning up resources properly once not needed, writing inefficient code, etc. all quickly adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in big companies. I once found a “test” db cluster from an engineer who hadn’t worked in the company for 3 years. We were payi…

The huge achievement of Amazon was designing a system and selling it to people where developers no longer had to pre-approve spending. Previously developers were hamstrung by purchase order requirements; it could take weeks to authorize a single computer. Now the pendulum has swung in the direction. Developers can spend unlimited amounts of company money without realizing, billed in arrears.

And in many cases this is a huge net win! After all, there's another way to waste company money invisibly: design a process which requires meetings and waiting while work is held up.

Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#25

Post by pixl97 »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #23
darth_avocado wrote: post #16

It is unfortunate that cost management isn’t something most engineers keep an eye out for on a regular basis. Spinning up unnecessary resources, not cleaning up resources properly once not needed, writing inefficient code, etc. all quickly adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in big companies. I once found a “test” db cluster from an engineer who hadn’t worked in the company for 3 years. We were payi…

I get paid the same whether or not I spend time going around to save company cost, it’s not like they’re going to share their savings, then shareholders get their juice, management gets their juice and Im the clown who went out of my way for them, who cares I do software not cost management

Which is why your slice of the organization gets a cloud budget. Don't keep your budget under control, well no bonuses for the employees.

>Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome

Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#26

Post by throwup238 »

pjc50 wrote: post #24
darth_avocado wrote: post #16

It is unfortunate that cost management isn’t something most engineers keep an eye out for on a regular basis. Spinning up unnecessary resources, not cleaning up resources properly once not needed, writing inefficient code, etc. all quickly adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in big companies. I once found a “test” db cluster from an engineer who hadn’t worked in the company for 3 years. We were payi…

The huge achievement of Amazon was designing a system and selling it to people where developers no longer had to pre-approve spending. Previously developers were hamstrung by purchase order requirements; it could take weeks to authorize a single computer. Now the pendulum has swung in the direction. Developers can spend unlimited amounts of company money without realizing, billed in arrears. And in many cases this is…

We should be getting kickbacks from Amazon for all the work we’ve done for their bottom line.

Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#27

Post by lnxg33k1 »

pixl97 wrote: post #25
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get paid the same whether or not I spend time going around to save company cost, it’s not like they’re going to share their savings, then shareholders get their juice, management gets their juice and Im the clown who went out of my way for them, who cares I do software not cost management

Which is why your slice of the organization gets a cloud budget. Don't keep your budget under control, well no bonuses for the employees. >Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome

>Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome

Would print this phrase on every angle of the offices

Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#29

Post by onyxringer »

darth_avocado wrote: post #16

It is unfortunate that cost management isn’t something most engineers keep an eye out for on a regular basis. Spinning up unnecessary resources, not cleaning up resources properly once not needed, writing inefficient code, etc. all quickly adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in big companies. I once found a “test” db cluster from an engineer who hadn’t worked in the company for 3 years. We were payi…

Don't you know that "Developer's time is expensive"? :D

Re: Cutting down AWS cost by $150k per year simply by shutting things off

#30

Post by pixl97 »

qaq wrote: post #11
datadrivenangel wrote: post #6

If you're spending $425k per year on non-production AWS resources, you have an interesting setup.

Dev env. for complicated products can be fairly involved and large companies might have a lot of them.

If you're dev doesn't look like production, then you're not testing in reality.
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