A Penny a Function: Towards Cost Transparent Cloud Programming

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cost model for cloud applications based on static analysis, enabling developers to estimate and visualize monetary costs directly within their code editor, improving cost management during development.

Contribution

The work presents a novel directed graph-based cost model and integrated visualization tools that connect cost estimation directly to source code, enhancing developer awareness and control.

Findings

Cost model derived from static code analysis

Embedded visualizations aid cost understanding

Facilitates proactive cost management during development

Abstract

Understanding and managing monetary cost factors is crucial when developing cloud applications. However, the diverse range of factors influencing costs for computation, storage, and networking in cloud applications poses a challenge for developers who want to manage and minimize costs proactively. Existing tools for understanding cost factors are often detached from source code, causing opaqueness regarding the origin of costs. Moreover, existing cost models for cloud applications focus on specific factors such as compute resources and necessitate manual effort to create the models. This paper presents initial work toward a cost model based on a directed graph that allows deriving monetary cost estimations directly from code using static analysis. Leveraging the cost model, we explore visualizations embedded in a code editor that display costs close to the code causing them. This makes cost exploration an integrated part of the developer experience, thereby removing the overhead of external tooling for cost estimation of cloud applications at development time.