# 14 – Use optimal pricing models based on infrastructure usage patterns
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 **How do you choose the financially-optimal pricing models of the infrastructure?** Consult with your finance team and choose optimal purchasing options, such as On-Demand Instances, Reserved Instances, or Spot Instances. Understand the infrastructure usage patterns of the analytics workload. You can optimize the cost by purchasing reserved capacity with upfront payment by using Spot Instances, or by paying Amazon EC2 usage via On-Demand Instance pricing models. Evaluate the available purchasing models of the analytics infrastructure of your choice and determine the optimal payment models. 


|  **ID**  |  **Priority**  |  **Best practice**  | 
| --- | --- | --- | 
|  ☐ BP 14.1   |  Recommended  |  Evaluate the infrastructure usage patterns then choose payment options accordingly.  | 
|  ☐ BP 14.2   |  Recommended  |  Consult with your finance team and determine optimal payment models.  | 

 For more details, refer to the following information: 
+  AWS Cloud Enterprise Strategy Blog: [Managing Your Cost Savings with Amazon Reserved Instances](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/enterprise-strategy/managing-your-cost-savings-with-amazon-reserved-instances/). 
+  AWS Big Data Blog: [How Goodreads offloads Amazon DynamoDB tables to Amazon S3 and queries](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/how-goodreads-offloads-amazon-dynamodb-tables-to-amazon-s3-and-queries-them-using-amazon-athena/) [them using Amazon Athena](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/how-goodreads-offloads-amazon-dynamodb-tables-to-amazon-s3-and-queries-them-using-amazon-athena/). 
+  AWS Big Data Blog: [Best practices for resizing and automatic scaling in Amazon EMR](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/best-practices-for-resizing-and-automatic-scaling-in-amazon-emr/). 
+  AWS Big Data Blog: [Work with partitioned data in AWS Glue](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/work-with-partitioned-data-in-aws-glue/). 
+  AWS Big Data Blog: [Using Amazon Redshift Spectrum, Amazon Athena, and AWS Glue with Node.js in](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/using-amazon-redshift-spectrum-amazon-athena-and-aws-glue-with-node-js-in-production/) [Production](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/using-amazon-redshift-spectrum-amazon-athena-and-aws-glue-with-node-js-in-production/). 
+  AWS Compute Blog: [10 things you can do today to reduce AWS costs](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/10-things-you-can-do-today-to-reduce-aws-costs/). 
+  AWS Billing and Cost Management and Cost Management User Guide: [Using Cost Allocation Tags](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/cost-alloc-tags.html). 
+  AWS Well-Architected Framework: [Cost Optimization Pillar](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/cost-optimization-pillar/welcome.html). 
+  AWS Whitepaper: [Laying the Foundation: Setting Up Your Environment for Cost Optimization](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/cost-optimization-laying-the-foundation/introduction.html). 
+  AWS Whitepaper: [Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances and Other AWS Reservation Models](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/cost-optimization-reservation-models/introduction.html). 
+  AWS Whitepaper: [Overview of Amazon EC2 Spot Instances](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/cost-optimization-leveraging-ec2-spot-instances/cost-optimization-leveraging-ec2-spot-instances.html). 
+  AWS Whitepaper: [Right Sizing: Provisioning Instances to Match Workloads](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/cost-optimization-right-sizing/cost-optimization-right-sizing.html). 
+  AWS Whitepaper: [AWS Storage Optimization](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/cost-optimization-storage-optimization/cost-optimization-storage-optimization.html). 
+  Amazon Redshift: [Purchasing Amazon Redshift reserved nodes](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/mgmt/purchase-reserved-node-instance.html). 

# Best practice 14.1 – Evaluate the infrastructure usage patterns and choose your payment options accordingly
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 On-demand resources provide immense flexibility with pay-as-you-go payment models across multiple scenarios and scales. Alternately, Reserved Instances provide significant cost saving for workloads that have steady resource utilization and serverless options for unpredictable demand. Perform regular workload resource usage analysis. Choose the best pricing model to ensure that you don’t miss cost optimization opportunities and maximize your discounts. 

## Suggestion 14.1.1 – Evaluate available payment options of the infrastructure resources of your choice
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 Review the pricing page for specific AWS services. Each service will list the billing metrics, such as runtime or gigabytes processed, as well as any discount options for dedicated usage. In addition, many AWS analytics services offer discounted payment terms, Reserved Instances, or Savings Plans, in exchange for a specific usage commitment. Almost all AWS services offer the payment for usage on demand, meaning you only pay for what you use. 

## Suggestion 14.1.2 – For steady, permanent workloads, obtain Reserved Instances or Savings Plans price discounts instead of paying On-Demand Instance pricing
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 Reserved Instances give you the option to reserve some AWS resources for a one- or a three-year term. In turn, you will receive a significant discount compared with the On-Demand Instance pricing. Workloads that have consistent long-term usage are good candidates for the Reserved Instance payment option. 

## Suggestion 14.1.3 – Use either on-demand, spot or serverless resources during development and in pre-production environments
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 Development and pre-production environments frequently change and often do not require 100% availability. Use on-demand instances with start and stop resources, or serverless resources in cases where workload utilization is unpredictable, frequently changes, or is only used for portions of the day. You can use spot instances for fault-tolerant and flexible big data analytics applications. Spot instances are available at up to a 90% discount compared to on-demand prices. Spot instances are not suitable for workloads that are inflexible, stateful, fault-intolerant, or tightly coupled between instance nodes. 

 For more detail, refer to the following: 
+ [ Optimize Cost by Automating the Start or Stop of Resources in Non-Production Environments Spot Instance Best Practices ](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/optimize-cost-by-automating-the-start-stop-of-resources-in-non-production-environments/)
+ [ Optimizing Amazon EC2 Spot Instances with Spot Placement Scores ](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/optimizing-amazon-ec2-spot-instances-with-spot-placement-scores/)

# Best practice 14.2 – Consult with your finance team and determine optimal payment models
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 If you use reserved-capacity pricing options, you can reduce the infrastructure cost without modifying your workload architectures. Collaborate with your finance team on the planning and use of purchase discounts. 

 Make informed decisions regarding various cost factors. These include the amount of capacity to reserve, the reserve term length, and the choice of upfront payments for their corresponding discount rates. The finance team should assist your team in determining the best long-term and reserved-capacity pricing options. This is because these options affect your IT budget plans, such as which month is the right moment to pay an upfront charge. 

## Suggestion 14.2.1 – Consolidate the infrastructure usage to maximize the coverage of reserved capacity price options
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 Reserved Instances and Savings Plan purchases apply automatically to the resources that will receive the largest discount benefit. To maximize your discount utilization, consolidate resources in accounts within an AWS Organization structure. Allow the purchase commitments to apply to other AWS accounts within your organization if they are unused in the account for which they are purchased.