# Best practices
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 There are five best practice areas for cost optimization: 

**Topics**
+ [Cost-effective resources](cost-effective-resources.md)
+ [Expenditure and usage awareness](expenditure-and-usage-awareness.md)
+ [Matching supply and demand](matching-supply-and-demand.md)
+ [Cloud Financial Management](cloud-financial-management.md)
+ [Optimize over time](optimize-over-time.md)

 Design decisions are sometimes guided by haste as opposed to empirical data, as the temptation always exists to overcompensate *just in case* rather than spend time benchmarking for the most cost-optimal deployment. 

 This often leads to over-provisioned and poorly optimized deployments. The following sections provide techniques and strategic guidance for the initial and ongoing cost optimization of your deployment.