{"id":25760,"date":"2021-04-28T16:33:28","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T15:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?p=25760"},"modified":"2021-05-12T14:26:15","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T13:26:15","slug":"managing-infrastructure-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/managing-infrastructure-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing infrastructure costs as your company grows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Startups are designed to grow quickly, but high growth rates can generate huge costs as new infrastructure is introduced and scaled to meet demand.<\/p>\n

How can we maximize returns without introducing developer friction and slowing company growth rate<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Cloud costs can be awkward and are constantly evolving, as proven by the growing world of cloud financial management (FinOps). At Intercom, we use a strong set of foundational principles<\/a> to guide and align our organization in times of rapid growth. Our cost program is no different \u2013 we lay out our intentions and expectations by setting clear principles that allow us to maximize our cost efficiency while growing and serving new customers at scale. So, what are our principles and processes?<\/p>\n

1. Take a reactive approach to cost management<\/h2>\n

At Intercom, shipping is our heartbeat<\/a>. We believe in the benefits of continuous deployment. For a company to keep growing, it has to keep iterating and delivering value for new and existing customers.<\/p>\n

Our philosophy is to ship first and optimize later. The risk is that new features could cause costs to spiral out of control, but we find that when this strategy is implemented alongside our other principles, reactive cost management means we spend more time building and serving customer needs.<\/p>\n

“We believe in the benefits of continuous deployment. For a company to keep growing, it has to keep iterating and delivering value for new and existing customers”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Instead of dedicating precious engineering time and resources to creating cost estimates (which may not even match the reality of production), comparing them against carefully forecasted budgets, and seeking the necessary approval to go ahead \u2013 our engineers build from the outset. Once the feature or product is up and running, we have a true and accurate picture of costs and how this feature will affect our bottom line. This gives us realistic, accurate, and useful data and guides us nicely to our next principle.<\/p>\n

2. Prioritize by impact<\/h2>\n

As a result of our reactive strategy, we are gifted with a backlog of cost optimization opportunities. The key is identifying which of these opportunities to pursue, and prioritizing by impact. Build out an evaluation framework that uses inputs that matter to your team. For example, at Intercom, we primarily focus on return for effort; the estimated savings we will make per engineering hour required to execute the work.<\/p>\n

We evaluate each and every opportunity in our backlog against this framework, using known blockers and constraints as effort inputs, and prioritizing projects based on projected return per investment. This allows us to concentrate resources where they can be most impactful, freeing up other teams to focus on product delivery and customer satisfaction.<\/p>\n

3. Centralize governance<\/h2>\n

Instead of trying to democratize complex, per-product billing knowledge across your team, create a small team of engineers to navigate the world of cloud computing. This team can take on the everyday management of your infrastructure costs, for example:<\/p>\n