Field notes, not thought leadership

The four line items behind most Australian AWS bills

Across thirty-odd cost engagements, the same four culprits account for the majority of avoidable spend: inter-AZ and egress data transfer, non-production environments running 168 hours a week, RDS instances sized for a load test from 2022, and orphaned snapshots nobody has ever been billed a line item for. Here is how we quantify each in a week — and what to do about them in the order that pays back fastest.