Cloud Data Platforms and the TMGT(Too-Much-of-a-Good-Thing) Effect

The "too much of a good thing" (TMGT) effect occurs when an initially positive relationship between an antecedent and a desirable outcome variable turns negative due to overuse or abuse, leading to nonmonotonic overall relations. This phenomenon is prevalent in various sectors such as medicine, agriculture, management, and cloud data platforms. The TMGT effect can lead to wasted resources and undesirable outcomes if not managed properly. Cloud data platforms offer numerous benefits like high availability, infinite infrastructure deployment, innovative orientation, and pay-as-you-go billing. However, these advantages can also trigger the TMGT effect in an unobserved environment, leading to infinite costs, lack of transparency into spend, unoptimized use of resources, inability to detect anomalous surges, best practices violations, missing guardrails, and silent failures. To tackle this issue, organizations should establish a culture of observability within their big data teams.