CodeGuru: AWS launches its new code optimization tool

As every year, AWS benefits from the visibility of its summit "Re:invent" to announce its ambitions, objectives, but also the new products prepared by its army of developers. As we write these lines, Las Vegas is being invaded by cloud professionals from all over the world attending the AWS Great Mass. With a view to cost control and Finops vision, a new product has caught our attention: Amazon CodeGuru.

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Amazon CodeGuru: the new optimization weapon massive AWS

Amazon CodeGuru is now available on the market at the AWS Re:invent. This new product is presented as a Machine Learning-based tool, allowing the analysis and optimization of the most expensive lines of code in your applications.

Optimizing your code can sometimes be difficult and tedious. AWS presents its new optimization tool as an easy and effective way to minimize security risks and billing increases.

How does Amazon CodeGuru work?

CodeGuru is announced as a constant monitoring tool, which constantly runs on your production environment, with minimal processing capacity consumption to avoid influencing the performance of your applications. Like a prison guard, CodeGuru scans your code lines for the slightest deviation.

Thanks to a tag and alert system, the tool then reports all the problems encountered: security breaches (even minimal), inappropriate data processing, resource leakage, etc. In addition to these technical alerts, Amazon's power also allows you to benefit from advice on AWS or SDK best practices. CodeGuru detects deviations from established standards and guides you on the right path.

How to integrate CodeGuru into your FinOps strategy?

This new optimization tool could potentially become a useful tool for all FinOps professionals. The objective of a FinOps strategy is to establish an optimized development environment to better control the invoicing of Cloud services, CodeGuru obviously becomes an interesting product for all those who want to bring their Cloud architecture into a new era (and especially, reduce their invoices).

By continuously analyzing code lines and identifying all development issues, AWS allows users to improve the performance of their applications and move towards an optimized architecture, both financially and in terms of security.

Optimizing your code is also the opportunity to include your teams and your company in a Responsible Cloud approach, as we discussed in this article on Coud Cost Management. Reducing the overconsumption of Cloud resources reduces your energy impact and therefore allows you to adopt an eco-responsible approach.

An even more fuzzy AWS invoice?

"You'll take a little bit of blurry again, won't you?" However, since the announcement of its implementation, this new tool has caused a lot of reaction from cloud professionals. Many see this product as an automated service that will not allow for as effective optimization as a team of developers close to their company's context. Important and useful information could indeed be challenged by CodeGuru, without taking into account the development context and the needs inherent to a particular application.

Also, the price of this service is pointed out. AWS announces a pricing of $0.75 for 100 lines of scanned code per month. Many cloud professionals therefore do not see how to reduce their bills in practice with such high pricing.

One thing is certain: the adoption of this new service will not be possible without a significant amount of contextualization and adaptation to the real needs of the company and development teams. Imposing this tool without consulting your technical teams could cause collateral damage that should be avoided.