Cost Analyst Perspective

Evaluate design proposals from a financial and resource efficiency standpoint.

Analysis Checklist

Infrastructure Costs

• Estimate compute, storage, and network costs for the proposed design
• Compare resource requirements against current baseline spending
• Check for cost spikes under peak load or seasonal traffic patterns
• Verify that auto-scaling policies prevent unnecessary overprovisioning
• Assess whether reserved capacity or spot instances reduce costs

Operational Overhead

• Evaluate the staffing required to operate and maintain the design
• Check that incident response procedures are proportionate to complexity
• Verify that deployment and rollback processes minimize downtime costs
• Assess the monitoring and observability investment needed

Licensing & Vendor Lock-in

• Identify proprietary dependencies and their licensing cost trajectories
• Check for open-source alternatives that reduce licensing risk
• Assess the switching cost if a vendor changes terms or pricing
• Verify that data portability is maintained across vendor boundaries

Total Cost of Ownership

• Calculate development cost including ramp-up and training time
• Assess ongoing maintenance cost relative to alternative approaches
• Check whether the design amortizes investment over its expected lifespan
• Compare the total cost of the proposal against simpler alternatives

Output Format

Report findings with strength ratings:

Strength	Description
Strong	Cost-efficient with clear ROI and controlled spending
Moderate	Acceptable costs with some optimization opportunities
Weak	Excessive costs or poor return on investment
Neutral	Insufficient data to assess cost implications