Can you afford Free?
What about the things you don't right a check for that are included in your software licenses?
I’ve challenged the team to identify low-hanging fruit that we can outsource so that they can spend time on the more challenging aspects of our research. For example, one of my engineers pointed out that we could pay AWS for Managed Active Directory (AD).
My gut reaction was that I already pay for AD licenses via my Microsoft agreement, and how much work could it be? Well, AWS puts a number of it. They’ve priced it out. It’s created a new sense of clarity for me. There are many services my team runs that I consider “free.” If not free, it’s a hidden cost in the CTO Advisor Hybrid Infrastructure administrator.
My very ask was to expose these hidden costs to optimize my team’s time. In the end, I want to spend less time on administration and more time on research. I fell into this example by doing.