The Cost Optimization pillar focuses on avoiding unnecessary costs. Key topics include understanding and controlling where the money is being spent, selecting the most appropriate and right number of resource types, analyzing spend over time, and scaling to meet business needs without overspending.

There are five design principles for cost optimization in the cloud:

• Implement cloud financial management
• Adopt a consumption model
• Measure overall efficiency
• Stop spending money on undifferentiated heavy lifting
• Analyze and attribute expenditure