Cloud & FinOps
Everything filed under cloud & finops.
- S3 quietly became a coordination serviceStrong consistency, then conditional writes, then managed tables. S3 can now do jobs that used to need a database or a lock table. Most architectures have not caught up.
- Savings Plans are bonds, not couponsA commitment is a fixed-income position on your own future usage. Finance teams have managed that kind of risk for a century. Borrow their playbook: ladder it.
- The GPU line item is the new EC2 line itemAI workloads moved the biggest number on the bill. The playbook that tamed EC2 still applies, with two new metrics: GPU utilization and cost per request.
- On AWS, the SQL Server bill is a license billSQL Server 2016 reached end of extended support in July 2026, so a lot of databases are moving now. Before resizing anything, know that cores, not hardware, drive the cost.
- The cheapest EC2 instance is the one you turned offEvery cost review I've run starts the same way. Someone opens Cost Explorer, sorts by service, and EC2 sits at the top like it pays rent. It doesn't. You do.