Why Cloud Costs Are an Architecture Problem ft. Shailaja Beeram
Are “idle resources” really the problem, or just the easiest one to fix?
In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with cloud architect and engineer Shailaja Beeram to explore a fundamentally different perspective: cost inefficiencies don’t start in the billing file, but in architectural decisions made long before deployment.
Drawing on over 15 years of experience across AWS, Azure, and GCP, Shailaja explains how the way systems are designed, scaled, and evolved over time has a far greater impact on cloud spend than most teams realize.
From “zombie” networking resources to overlooked outbound traffic patterns, this conversation unpacks the hidden layers of cloud cost and why FinOps and architecture must converge to solve them.
Here’s what we talked about:
Why cloud inefficiencies often stem from architecture and not just unused resources
How NAT Gateways and private endpoints quietly drive unnecessary spend
What “zombie resources” are and how they accumulate over time
Why background traffic can mask true resource idleness
The importance of revisiting architectural decisions as systems evolve
The growing convergence of FinOps and cloud architectureQuote of the Show:
“FinOps… it doesn’t need to be separated. It should be a part of how you think about the architecture.” - Shailaja Beeram
Connect with Shailaja:
In this episode of FinOps in Action, Shailaja Beeram draws on over 15 years of cloud architecture experience across Azure, AWS, and GCP to make the case that most cloud inefficiencies don't start with the bill, they start with the architecture. She breaks down why networking costs like NAT Gateways are among the most overlooked sources of waste, how background traffic can mask idle resources and delay cleanup, and why engineers and FinOps practitioners need to converge around cost aware design decisions from the very beginning.