Disposable is the new sustainable, and throwing things away is the new loyalty

It was many and many a day ago,

In a Region by the sea

that A computer there lived whom you may know

By the name of Micro.T3

and it lived with no other thoughts but to test and be stressed by me.

And this was the reason that, a few minutes  ago,

In this region by the sea,

An attack blew out of the cloud, flooding

My disposable Micro.T3

No kinsmen came, not cared or asked

It was a bore even to me.

This machine, Imege, not divine or my own,

terminated, killed, removed.

will not see traffic on IPv4

Nevermore

I wrote this poem last year when I started my deep dive into AWS. At the time, it was a joke with my buddy about how disposable-immediate gratification culture at its technological peak can be created and destroyed at will.

Now, as I revisit this poem, I must ask myself again: is this a fair criticism? In the world of cloud FinOps- I was wrong (and corny, tech-poetry?!). Using brief, disposable computing power is far more sustainable than owning your own data center, and implementing right-sizing protocols shows your commitment to the platform. 

To understand the first part, we must discuss “massive economics of scale.” As much as macroeconomics on a global scale is a complex field, this specific part is easy to understand with a simple question: Why is a bus fare so cheap? If you compare the total cost of ownership and operation of your car and divide it by usage, you will come up with a much more significant number per km than the bus fare per km. As for the environment, how does taking the bus with its big engine make it “greener” than driving your smaller vehicle?

The answers are shared costs and right-sizing: the bus fare does not represent the total usage of the bus. Two factors mitigate this cost: you are not the only one on the bus and only pay for what you use, not the underlying fixed costs. Like your car, the bus has one engine and four wheels, a yearly inspection, and a parking place. The cost of your actual usage is much cheaper for km when the costs are shared among all passengers, and the bus runs all the time even when you are not using it. 

In other words, migrating your workload to the cloud will not only free you from most of the operational overhead associated with owning your own data center, but it will save you money on IT costs because you will pay only for what you need and not for idle machines. 

But why do I dare say it is an act of loyalty to the brand if you can maximize yields and efficiency, cutting costs by up to 36% beyond what you save by migrating?

Efficiency and cost-saving are acts of brand loyalty. You can only achieve efficiency by truly knowing and loving your platform: the quirks and updates, the unique patterns and behaviors. Right-sizing is not downsizing; it can be good timing, balancing opportunities, and even harnessing other services, knowing yourself, asking the right questions on the workload, and deep diving into the options the cloud provider gives you.

Reaching such a level of awareness of your requirements and the technological capabilities to maintain it while mitigating the risk of underperforming is a three-step journey: understand what you need, know where you are, and then take the journey. First, we will need to understand the process and organization to tailor the technical suit to optimize the workload- to understand our goal. After we know where we are heading, to chart the right course to success, we need not only to establish our goal but also our starting point, and for this, we will emphasize the Learning Needs Analysis. 

Learning Needs Analysis will identify any gaps in your organization’s cloud-related skills. The core of the analysis is a survey sent to the organization’s members based on your requirements. An AWS expert will analyze the survey results with you, identifying specific areas that require attention. The unique structure of this service allows you to see both the forest and the trees, both the general course of action and the individual training paths each member will require to get you there.

Using the Learning Needs Analysis insights, we can create a path for each one to train the general fields and specific skills to ensure each one can create and maintain a well-architected framework. Using the AWS official course will ensure the reliability and relevance of the content as well as access to labs in real AWS environments based on real scenarios, not just to talk the talk but also to walk the walk.

After we complete the first path, we can test the return on the investment in many ways, such as official AWS certification exams, performing a trusted advisor’s analysis of the framework, or cost saving, efficiency, and KPI tracking. More often than not, by the so-called end of this process, you will understand the best consumer is the educated consumer, and you will soon chart the path to the next level of utilization of your cloud, thus beginning a new process of continuous upskilling in the same environment.

For cloud providers, embracing on-demand cloud services unleashes the true power of economics of scale. By utilizing “disposable” compute assets, we contribute to a global resource optimization effort. To truly thrive in the dynamic and efficient cloud landscape, it’s essential to understand both individual needs and the cloud provider’s offerings. As a result, the provider may have lower profits, but it solidifies your status as a loyal customer, paving the way for a mutually beneficial relationship.