# COST11-BP01 - Perform automation for operations

Best practice: COST11-BP01
Pillar: Cost Optimization
Source: https://wellarchitected.cloudvisor.eu/docs/cost-optimization/cost11-bp01.html

## Implementation guidance

Evaluate the cost of effort for your cloud operations, identify the
time-consuming and repetitive operational tasks, and automate them to reduce
human effort and cost. The goal is to weigh the cost of building and maintaining
automation against the ongoing cost of performing the work manually, and to
automate where automation pays off.

### Evaluate the cost of effort

**Inventory operational tasks**: Catalog recurring operational activities
(provisioning, patching, backups, scaling, incident response, reporting) and
estimate the human effort and frequency of each.

**Quantify manual cost**: For each task, estimate the recurring cost of doing it
manually — staff time, error rate, and the opportunity cost of that time — so
you can compare it against the cost of automating.

**Prioritize by payoff**: Prioritize automation for tasks that are frequent,
time-consuming, error-prone, or on the critical path, where the recurring manual
cost clearly exceeds the one-time cost to build and maintain the automation.

### Automate operations

**Adopt AWS-native automation**: Use managed and serverless services to remove
undifferentiated operational effort — for example AWS Systems Manager for
patching and runbooks, AWS Lambda and EventBridge for event-driven automation,
infrastructure as code for repeatable provisioning, and Auto Scaling for demand
management.

**Use third-party or custom tooling where appropriate**: Where AWS-native
options do not fit, adopt third-party products or build custom automation,
factoring the build-and-maintain cost into the effort analysis.

**Measure the savings**: Track the reduction in manual effort and cost after
automating, and feed the results back into prioritizing the next set of tasks.

## AWS Services to Consider

<div class="aws-service">
  <div class="aws-service-content">
    <h4>AWS Systems Manager</h4>
    <p>Automate patching, runbooks, and routine operational tasks to cut recurring manual effort.</p>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="aws-service">
  <div class="aws-service-content">
    <h4>AWS Lambda &amp; Amazon EventBridge</h4>
    <p>Build event-driven automation that responds to operational events without standing infrastructure.</p>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="aws-service">
  <div class="aws-service-content">
    <h4>AWS CloudFormation / IaC</h4>
    <p>Automate repeatable provisioning and configuration to remove manual, error-prone setup work.</p>
  </div>
</div>

## Related Resources

<div class="related-resources">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/framework/cost_evaluate_cost_effort_automations_operations.html">AWS Well-Architected — COST11-BP01 Perform automation for operations</a></li>
    <li><a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/framework/cost-11.html">COST11: How do you evaluate the cost of effort?</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>