[owenmarshall]

AWS pricing and optimization is just capacity planning, which doesn’t go away if you run on prem - it just looks different, with longer time horizons & financial implications.

“Will my data center run out of floor space & I need to expand?” (years+)

“Will I have enough cooling & power to support the new racks we need?” (6 months+)

“When do I need to get the server order out to ensure we meet our capacity needs?” (6+ weeks)

Every one of those are capital expenditures, so line them up with the annual budget cycle - be sure to keep enough spare capacity to be responsive for last minute asks.

Don’t think my intent is to romanticize the cloud, either. It’s not better, nor worse, just a different way to manage things.

Of course if your company is sufficiently small, do whatever you know and can do quickly - customer acquisition will be more important than debating the cost of either infra in aws or a colo’d server or two in some racks somewhere. But the complexity doesn’t go away if you go to the cloud, OR if you are all on prem. TINSTAAFL.