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Antipattern: Old generation

Using newer resource generations gives similar performance for lower cost.

Context

Cloud providers occasionally update their offerings to support, for example, newer CPU generations. These newer generations are often more efficient, making them a more economical option compared to older generations.

Solution

Upgrade resources to newer generations to attain comparable or better performance for a lower price. The most commonly replaced resources include, but are not limited to, AWS's t2 general-purpose compute instances and gp2 storage volumes.

Example

Switch from gp2 to gp3 storage, providing comparable performance but lower cost:

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 resource "aws_instance" "example" {
   # ...
   root_block_device {
-    volume_type = "gp2"
+    volume_type = "gp3"
     # ...
   }
 }

References

• Amazon EBS volume types
• Migrate your Amazon EBS volumes from gp2 to gp3 and save up to 20% on costs
• Compute - EC2 Instance Types - AWS
• Amazon EC2 T2 Instances - Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Amazon EC2 T3 Instances - Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Occurrences

Terraform

• https://github.com/gudlyf/TerraformOpenVPN/commit/be1245d8634025277ba79a4155ee88d7eaffcdfb
• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws/commit/6cfda6ada5137b232ff442ae9f2aedc8520ee1b4
• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws/commit/aeb3bfbe393cdfc02e62b812843ed75cf5f245e4
• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws/commit/5fa5da9756f12559b490217dd5b173db48e7f2a9
• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws/commit/19d187e4a29147cbcf1cfae456cfcbfa8ad52b45
• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws/commit/806b1a2a47f2f4e580e524b2cf8cc5928749d972
• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws/commit/8d7d2ebe0dbe9ebf8009572d1d710c4700cf245e
• https://github.com/greenbrian/musical-spork/commit/24c07bfd5c31438fff6374e9ba3d577e6402d777
• https://github.com/dotancohen81/Rancher/commit/90944271b4e8bd46e3d42ac64bc4964a33a8fdc3
• https://github.com/cisagov/cyhy_amis/commit/7b8d9247a679295e0e1791b13d6c437c473e44b8
• https://github.com/yardbirdsax/elasticsearch-the-hard-way/commit/521bae59a4002a616eac44c1681ca5066bbd00c8
• https://github.com/GBergeret/tf-vpc-module/commit/34d80ece7d0ef598414baffceb074c6580dd819b
• https://github.com/cisagov/vulnerable-instances/commit/f70410061b8c6b9249895571e05dfb7a142efb18
• https://github.com/dwp/dataworks-aws-data-egress/commit/14f065e5161fee14c286c34df7db9f5516ef9bb6
• https://github.com/circleci/enterprise-setup/commit/26cc5295c2bb9d8756e450712e0f5f75af440c4a
• https://github.com/bh1m2rn/gitlab-environment-toolkit/commit/b9750f0bb88bc22256085b6bc8f060055e90a8c4
• https://github.com/travis-ci/terraform-config/commit/4f641b162fa877aef842481631906d5bfe874781
• https://github.com/byu-oit/terraform-aws-rds/commit/86a0795540edb426c3226775d73fcd4ce807d36a
• https://github.com/poseidon/terraform-azure-kubernetes/commit/633eb938742a43be09612b944c29aaaf70dac119
• https://github.com/poseidon/terraform-aws-kubernetes/commit/e09126b45746f1c967d1990fa04ce781a0478c6d
• https://github.com/deadlysyn/terraform-keycloak-aws/commit/1c982ac4120ae3ed5a88c38f2a4d568ad9a83d22
• https://github.com/ONSdigital/eq-terraform/commit/79845fe095cd87287346f40d2adce9b28a32ef35
• https://github.com/kinvolk-archives/lokomotive-kubernetes/commit/f2f4deb8bb44988eeb0b64b919e51fb556aef4fb
• https://github.com/smarman85/a_new_hope/commit/de97a6b8033c866c3b711468207aa4890049daaa
• https://github.com/kmishra9/PL2-AWS-Setup/commit/0d7b5b0f6f92ff6cfde1f17ad96d1b1459a0957a
• https://github.com/cisagov/cool-sharedservices-nessus/commit/5403a8978053a1299b0afe8d7fc59e914fc5e354
• https://github.com/guillaumekh/wg-terraform-template/commit/effee9cbc473af5d07cfc3aacece50aa6e59753a
• https://github.com/ninthnails/terraform-aws-camellia/commit/0019704e14723aaf326840ab36c594c3f514a2d4
• https://github.com/openaustralia/infrastructure/commit/63ee190c0ae1832bb72681e1e4b1b14a9367b4bb
• https://github.com/robertdebock/terraform-aws-vault/commit/e3b6520960a88aacbf03339dc1368f680a8bee9a
• https://github.com/cisagov/cool-assessment-terraform/commit/3138943ab4d15cc256d322e1128862ef11383c73
• https://github.com/pelias/terraform-elasticsearch/commit/21c1827f4507eae217d43d99ad8cb1bbb1337e21
• https://github.com/lowflying/OVPN---TF/commit/be1245d8634025277ba79a4155ee88d7eaffcdfb
• https://github.com/figurate/bedrock/commit/bffc023eeff075ef281b1fd261897f4c7216b354
• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws/commit/ffa75257747f225577616e6cf517eee965221041
• https://github.com/jg210/aws-experiments/commit/b09b668e5c3a11366551168541480b69e94c8c3a
• https://github.com/ministryofjustice/cloud-platform-environments/commit/ce502048eb3cd95e708f4575efefaf8dc60d7722
• https://github.com/ministryofjustice/cloud-platform-environments/commit/b6cea25115ac93a788cdedc2fe2f94d2c7ff6658
• https://github.com/ministryofjustice/cloud-platform-environments/commit/aa07f2d9772cc376589bec2cbb42f9ba849927db

AWS CloudFormation

• https://github.com/openrelayxyz/ethercattle-deployment/commit/169a5f7292d7e15be885c33b345ce87477d8d227
• https://github.com/guardian/multimedia-launchdetector-v3/commit/f0a2dd00bade5d9ebf943be0af3f8ed3982d54d2
• https://github.com/guardian/archivehunter/commit/c4b49a9c288973886c0d95ae93ef006842e892fe
• https://github.com/chef-boneyard/aws_native_chef_server/commit/f63839453506420064afb7350971c65be47d39a6
• https://github.com/widdix/aws-cf-templates/commit/0156a84027bc371504a520c5ad85b332cdf0197d
• https://github.com/Financial-Times/com.ft.editorial.cms.ecs/commit/ff8be3eafd1e10ec6c80d60e6dac5bb1e6df7c69
• https://github.com/guardian/status-app/commit/018c277e53700d397b89e583b1ff8aec3f695acd
• https://github.com/cyberark/pas-on-cloud/commit/abced10a2e49510831fa7ef82b520b7a1701d8c9
• https://github.com/S8Vega/academic-friends-api/commit/c4747679155f119a07284f5eee455eee5dd7c1a6
• https://github.com/UTSA-ICS/galahad/commit/b40d5ff5e4c2d018a39c1a3536878eaec31df729
• https://github.com/alope107/collage-sam/commit/dbb61c7bd6e0c69f34837b5d2d50bdef3ceb1dfb
• https://github.com/nasa-petal/PeTaL-db/commit/15142ebe0c06722f916db9b447693190437c7136
• https://github.com/FINRAOS/herd-mdl/commit/937aafaf67e678be2978d660b1359c3887a5f933
• https://github.com/primeharbor/pht-prowler-searchcluster/commit/fdf850a04a796ef4bc99a2521eec28edba258ba6
• https://github.com/guardian/multimedia-plasma-dashboard/commit/839575666178bae80c51dc7cd0c9f44a6164fc9e
• https://github.com/atlassian/aws-infrastructure/commit/65a7a5ca335c569c3f4213889034561cf9d5db07
• https://github.com/buildkite/elastic-ci-stack-for-aws/commit/f9738e221b496fd12f5d917c0515ad0e008dfbc1
• https://github.com/BastLeblanc/retail-demo-store/commit/e1c862637b8afdeb2832dedaef25e63253bc6780
• https://github.com/developmentseed/sat-api-pg/commit/7869c28fdd24ae10254a6431f5b93251bd0580f6