cost-optimization

Start with right-sizing by analyzing resource utilization and downsizing over-provisioned instances, then apply Reserved Instances or Savings Plans for steady workloads to save 30-72%. Combine with auto-scaling and S3 lifecycle policies to eliminate idle and storage waste.

Compute Savings Plans offer up to 66% savings with flexibility across instance families, regions, and services including Fargate and Lambda. EC2 Instance Savings Plans reach 72% but lock you to a specific instance family, while Standard Reserved Instances offer the least flexibility.

Use spot instances (AWS, up to 90% savings) or preemptible VMs (GCP, up to 80% savings) for fault-tolerant workloads like batch jobs, CI/CD pipelines, and stateless services. Mix them with on-demand capacity since AWS gives only a 2-minute interruption notice.

Define an aws_budgets_budget resource with a monthly cost limit and a notification block that triggers at a threshold such as 80% of actual spend. Azure and GCP offer equivalent alerting through Cost Management and Budget alerts respectively.

Yes, the framework covers AWS, Azure, and GCP with provider-specific guidance for each, plus multi-cloud tooling like CloudHealth, Cloudability, and Kubecost. The four-step framework of visibility, right-sizing, pricing models, and architecture optimization applies uniformly.