## Metadata * URL: [https://blog.dataminded.com/why-rising-cloud-costs-are-the-silent-killers-of-data-platforms-52a98b371f28](https://blog.dataminded.com/why-rising-cloud-costs-are-the-silent-killers-of-data-platforms-52a98b371f28) * Published Date: 2022-07-06 * Author: [[kris-peeters|Kris Peeters]] ## Highlights * The solution is close monitoring and good governance rules. But those things are often implemented too late. * No executive who wants to get a next promotion dares to challenge the ever-increasing expenses in data. They are labeled as old-fashioned, and they “don’t get it”. In reality, most executives don’t get it. The data emperor wears no clothes. * If you prefer to manage each low level component yourself, to keep full control and reduce cloud costs to the max, then make sure to invest in a stellar data team that can focus on building the platform and offer a great developer experience to the users of the platform. * 3. Standardise on something that you can easily move from platform to platform. Today, for all processing code, the humble [[docker|Docker]] container is a great abstraction layer. It’s universally supported across clouds. And you can run it yourself or go for managed solutions. * **Note**: But this has quite the cost on complexity too * 4. Keep a close eye on cloud costs, and pro-actively optimise where it hurts the most. Don’t wait for the executives to do this exercise for you. Cloud vendors have tools and dashboards to do exactly this. Use them! * 5. Whatever you do, iterate. Don’t make 5 year plans. Don’t spend 1 year on architecture alone. Ship useful stuff. Collect feedback. Iterate. A modern data platform evolves over time.