Observability retention for the city’s multi-cloud estate is set to forever “just in case,” and storage cost is exploding. What should ops do?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Keeping every log forever “just in case” is like never taking out the recycling—pretty soon the garage is the bill. Right-size retention to what auditors and ops actually need, then let the rest age out. Observability that ignores cost stops being useful when finance shuts it off.
Full Explanation
Right-sizing retention periods to compliance and operational need controls exploding observability storage cost when the city’s multi-cloud estate was set to forever “just in case.” Moving forever retention onto developer laptops hides the bill and worsens data protection. Disabling metrics collection permanently eliminates visibility rather than solving retention design. Replicating every log to three public buckets with infinite lifecycle increases cost and exposure. Exam caveat: indefinite retention without requirement is an anti-pattern; align keep-time to policy. Operational check: classify telemetry, set per-class retention, automate expiry, and report savings to municipal finance after enforcement. In municipal platform operations, record the chosen control and the rejected alternatives in the change record so future on-call engineers understand the failure modes avoided for citizen services. Re-check the decision after the next provider feature change or compliance update to ensure the same answer still holds for the city's estate. Confirm monitoring, access reviews, and backup coverage still align with the selected approach before closing the civic hypercare period. Document residual risk for auditors.