How Recovering USS Yorktown’s Artifacts Inspired Our 38% Cloud Cost Reduction Strategy

Did You Know Your Team’s Coding Habits Could Be Sinking Your Cloud Budget?

Here’s something we learned while researching naval history: Just like ocean currents carry artifacts far from their origins, everyday developer decisions create ripple effects in your cloud spending. When our team studied how USS Yorktown artifacts were recovered against all odds, it sparked our 38% cloud cost reduction breakthrough. The secret? Treating cloud resources like precious historical finds that need protection.

The Hidden Wrecks Draining Your Cloud Budget

Finding USS Yorktown coins in unlikely places taught us what to look for in cloud environments:

• Ghost storage (those forgotten EBS snapshots and Azure disks)
• Abandoned load balancers floating like ship debris
• Dev environments running full steam… even on weekends
• Oversized containers – the “battleship engines” powering dinghies

We realized our cloud waste looked just like those scattered artifacts – valuable resources lost through simple neglect.

Our Field Guide to Financial Shipwreck Recovery

1. Tagging: Your Artifact Catalog System

Numismatists document every coin detail. We now tag cloud resources with the same precision:

AWS CLI example:
aws ec2 create-tags --resources i-1234567890abcdef0 \
--tags Key=Environment,Value=Production Key=Owner,Value=FinOps

Pro tip: Make tagging mandatory before deployment – it’s like packing labels for your cloud expeditions.

2. Rightsizing: Swap Battleships for Speedboats

Those 16-vCPU instances running at 5%? They’re modern cloud cannons – impressive but wasteful. Try:

• AWS: Let Compute Optimizer suggest engine sizes
• Azure: Scale Sets that adjust like tide-sensitive harbors
• GCP: Sustained discounts for loyal crew members

Platform-Specific Salvage Missions

AWS Cost Recovery Dives

Our weekly “treasure hunt” script became legendary:

# Find unattached EBS volumes
aws ec2 describe-volumes --query \
'Volumes[?Attachments==`[]`].[VolumeId,Size,CreateTime]'

Last quarter, this single script recovered $17k in forgotten storage.

Azure’s Sonar Mapping

Azure Cost Management’s Power BI connector creates spending maps clearer than any naval chart. We spotted duplicate resources immediately – like finding two anchors on one ship.

GCP’s Time Capsule Insights

BigQuery cost analysis revealed surprises worthy of a museum exhibit:

SELECT service.description, SUM(cost)
FROM `project.dataset.gcp_billing_export`
GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 2 DESC LIMIT 10

Our data team found testing environments costing more than production – a true historical anomaly.

Serverless: Faster Than Clipper Ships, Trickier Than Whirlpools

While serverless functions are agile vessels, watch for:

• Cold starts idling like ships in fog
• Memory overallocation (bringing a cargo ship for kayak loads)
• Log groups accumulating like barnacles

“Our serverless rule: More voyage logs don’t make better sailors. Audit weekly.”

Your Cloud’s Sunken Treasure Awaits

Just as USS Yorktown artifacts finally came home, we recovered 38% of our cloud budget through:

• Military-grade tagging (our artifact manifest)
• Friday waste hunts (modern sonar sweeps)
• Developer lunch-and-learns (crew training sessions)

The ocean of cloud waste is vast, but your treasure map starts here. What will you recover first?

Related Resources

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