May 2022 Summaries

Since 2009, the author has focused on understanding and managing the complexities of cloud computing costs, initially developing vendor-neutral tools to aid organizations in adopting public clouds by assessing suitability, benefits, risks, and costs. Over time, cloud cost complexity has significantly increased, with current tools like Infracost.io now tracking millions of price points due to the intricate pricing structures of major providers like AWS, Azure, and Google. This complexity makes it challenging to predict costs accurately, leading to budget misalignments and unexpected charges, often placing engineers under pressure to optimize costs and address discrepancies. Infracost.io, an open-source project, helps engineers understand the cost impacts of infrastructure changes by integrating with CI/CD workflows to provide detailed cost breakdowns, thereby enabling better communication with management and mitigating unexpected billing surprises. Despite new solutions, addressing cloud cost complexity remains an ongoing challenge that requires engineers' involvement due to their essential contextual knowledge.

Infracost v0.9.24 introduces several new features and enhancements, including a Get Started guide utilizing the parse HCL option, which allows the CLI to function independently of the Terraform binary and is noted for its speed. A new feature for comparing branches using the infracost diff command enhances flexibility, allowing users to integrate Infracost into any repository, including Terraform modules. The update also includes direct integration with Terraform Cloud, enabling users to access cloud cost estimates and security checks directly within the Terraform Cloud dashboard, simplifying infrastructure management. New resources have been added for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, expanding the tool's capabilities. Infracost also fosters community engagement through regular remote meetups and acknowledges contributions from its community members, while encouraging participation in community calls to discuss Infracost and cloud cost topics.

Infracost, in partnership with HashiCorp, has launched a direct integration into Terraform Cloud utilizing the new Terraform run tasks feature, allowing engineers to estimate the cost impact of their Infrastructure as Code changes before deployment. This integration aims to prevent budget breaches by providing a 'checkout screen' for developers, enabling them to see detailed cost breakdowns without hindering their workflow. By integrating into CI/CD systems, Infracost can leave comments like "this change will increase your costs by 15% next month." The setup process is straightforward, taking only three minutes, and it allows users to view cost estimates directly from the Terraform Cloud dashboard. While the current setup supports Advisory enforcement, which doesn't block runs, future updates are expected to include Mandatory enforcement to prevent cost overages.