Ian Whitestone

Databricks is one of the most cost-effective data platforms on the market. After working with over 250 companies on cloud data platform cost optimization, we've refined a 6-part framework — visibility, attribution, controls, alerts, insights, and automations — that optimizes cost management on Databricks. In this talk, we'll walk through each area with practical examples — from calculating fully loaded workload costs and attributing spend to teams, to building guardrails and automations that continuously optimize your environment. We'll also share hard-won lessons on why decentralizing cost ownership is the only approach that scales and how to build a culture of cost awareness across your organization.

In this session, Ian Whitestone, co-founder and CEO of SELECT, and Adam Healy, Senior Data Platform Engineer at Booking.com, will share how Booking.com has scaled their Snowflake data platform to thousands of users and millions of workloads processed per day, all while keeping costs in check and measuring ROI.

In this session, Jeremy Hughes, Senior Manager of Data Engineering at Carvana, and Ian Whitestone, CEO at SELECT, will share how Carvana scaled the Snowflake data platform to thousands of users and millions of workloads processed per day, all while keeping costs stable and driving consistent ROI. They will cover cost allocation strategies, data product ROI measurement, ways to stay on top of usage trends and other rituals and best practices.

The days of unrestrained cloud spending are coming to an end. In the coming months, data teams will increasingly be asked to better understand, monitor and reduce their data warehouse spend.