CloudBytes

Practical insights on engineering, cloud, and infrastructure decisions—covering architecture trade-offs, real-world deployments, observability, and the business impact behind technical choices.

Featured Posts

Cost Optimization

+1

Jun 16, 2026

The AWS NAT Gateway Cost Most Startups Don't Need to Pay

Why I replaced a NAT Gateway with a NAT Instance in a non-production environment—and cut networking costs by over 70%.

Harsh Agarwal

Cloud Infrastructure

+2

Jun 13, 2026

Most Startups Don't Need a Sharded MongoDB Cluster

Why I chose a MongoDB replica set over sharding—and avoided paying for complexity I didn't need.

Harsh Agarwal

Cost Optimization

+1

Jun 10, 2026

The AWS Cost Optimizations That Actually Move the Needle

Six cost optimization mistakes I repeatedly see in startup AWS environments.

Harsh Agarwal

All Posts

Cost Optimization

+1

Jun 16, 2026

The AWS NAT Gateway Cost Most Startups Don't Need to Pay

Why I replaced a NAT Gateway with a NAT Instance in a non-production environment—and cut networking costs by over 70%.

Harsh Agarwal

Cloud Infrastructure

+2

Jun 13, 2026

Most Startups Don't Need a Sharded MongoDB Cluster

Why I chose a MongoDB replica set over sharding—and avoided paying for complexity I didn't need.

Harsh Agarwal

Cost Optimization

+1

Jun 10, 2026

The AWS Cost Optimizations That Actually Move the Needle

Six cost optimization mistakes I repeatedly see in startup AWS environments.

Harsh Agarwal