February 2021 Summaries

Infracost's February release, version 0.7.20, brings several enhancements aimed at improving performance and user experience, including speeding up command execution by optimizing Terraform initialization and switching API calls from sequential to parallel. A new configuration file feature simplifies the management of complex Terraform workflows by allowing users to define project setups in an infracost.yml file. The update also includes integration with Atlantis, a CI/CD tool for Terraform pull request automation, and introduces JSON output capabilities for displaying cost differences. Support for additional cloud resources, including AWS, Google, and upcoming Azure enhancements, expands Infracost's functionality. Notably, the update provides detailed cost estimation for Google Cloud Functions, making it easier to manage and predict expenses. Feedback from users is encouraged to further refine the tool.

Over the past decade, the rise of shadow IT, particularly with AWS as the infrastructure provider, has allowed business units to independently manage resources, leading to agile operations but also creating issues like shadow spending and security risks. To mitigate these issues, central IT departments developed self-service portals with single sign-on, enabling resource management while providing enterprises with better visibility and control. However, this solution introduced new challenges, such as increased costs when projects scaled, necessitating intervention to resolve credit card limit issues and rule violations. Self-service portals addressed these financial constraints by implementing showback and chargeback systems, leaving optimization to end users post-bill. To proactively assist users, enterprises have adopted tools like Infracost to display cost estimates within self-service portals before resource deployment, set management and financial expectations through cost visibility, and monitor ongoing expenses with alerts and reports, thereby empowering users to make informed decisions and optimize cloud costs effectively.