AWS Cost Optimization: The Top 5 Best Practices to Control Cloud Costs!

There’s no doubt that cloud migration brings significant business benefits to organizations. From cost savings to productivity and adaptability, the cloud has enticed the IT world with many advantages. AWS is indeed the biggest cloud platform that allows users to leverage the benefits of cloud migration. However, the user needs to recite some AWS cost optimization techniques in their mind before starting their cloud journey. Grasping some good techniques for optimizing AWS costs indeed brings you all the cloud advantages. 

As the cloud is still uncharted territory, many businesses are finding themselves in the crosshairs of several cloud providers, each with its own complex pricing models, making it difficult to manage cloud expenditures. In fact, recent research revealed that 51% of all businesses overspend their budget on the cloud, and only about one in three reports achieving the full value expected on their cloud investments. 

So, how can businesses optimize their cloud spending and realize unlimited efficiency and flexibility?  

Taking due cognizance of this cloud cost management complexity, the leading cloud services providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), have dived in to help businesses gain control of their cloud investments. 

AWS has developed a cost optimization framework to enable its customers to migrate and manage workloads in the cloud in a reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective manner. The framework facilitates cloud optimization best practices to help businesses harness maximum value from their cloud investments. Without further ado, let’s deep dive into the best practices for optimizing AWS costs: 

Top 5 Best Practices for Optimizing AWS Costs 

1) Right-size EC2 Instances  

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) offers secure and scalable computing capacity in the AWS Cloud with over 500 instances to help customers best match the needs of their workloads. Instances come in a wide range of combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacities to offer customers the flexibility to pick the right mix of resources. However, many businesses fail to strike the right balance. This results in oversized instances and a lot of futile investments in unused resources, which further leads to uncontrollable spending.  

Right-sizing is the process of matching instance types and sizes to the workload requirements at the lowest possible cost. It also involves analyzing deployed instances and downsizing unused instances without compromising capacity, which results in lower costs.  

2) Start/Stop Instances at Predefined Intervals 

Scheduling starting and stopping times of EC2 instances help significantly in optimizing aws costs. The process involves stopping instances that are not in use and starting instances only when required. AWS Instance Scheduler is the right tool to automate the starting and stopping times of EC2 instances. When a company uses this Instance Scheduler in a non-productive environment, it automatically stops instances outside working hours, which results in up to 70% cost savings.  

3) Invest in Reserved Instances  

It’s worthwhile investing in Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances (RI) as they offer a significant discount of up to 72% when compared to the on-demand instance pricing model. Moreover, they can be applied to usage across all Availability Zones in AWS regions and provide a capacity reservation when used in a specific Availability Zone. There are three types of RIs available, namely Standard RIs, Convertible RIs, and Scheduled RIs, and customers can choose any type on par with their application needs. These instances can be shared between multiple accounts within a billing family. Furthermore, the customers are provided with the flexibility to change families, OS types, and tenancies. 

4) Terminate Unused & Unattached EBS Volumes 

Cloud customers often overlook unused Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes. This leads to potential AWS cost overruns. Businesses must take heed of the fact that the lifecycle of EBS volumes is independent of EC2 compute instances. So, even if the EC2 instance is terminated, the EBS volumes associated with that particular instance continue to persist unless the Delete on Termination option is checked when the instance was launched. If this is left unattended, it will contribute to the monthly AWS bill.  

Depending on your cloud usage and the instances launched without checking the delete box, there could be thousands of unattached EBS volumes in your AWS Cloud. So, it’s a good AWS cost optimization technique to terminate unused and unattached EBS volumes even if your business is relatively new to the AWS Cloud.  

5) Remove AWS Zombie Assets 

AWS Zombies are the unused assets running in your cloud environment that keep contributing to the ongoing cloud costs without producing any value. These assets come in many types. For instance, an EC2 instance once used for a particular purpose and is no longer in use but active is considered a zombie asset. Zombie assets can also occur when instances fail during the launch or due to any errors in the script that fail to de-provision instances.  

These assets must be evaluated and if they are deemed nonessential, they must be isolated and terminated immediately. However, it is wise to take a snap-shot or point-in-time copy of the asset before terminating it to ensure that the asset can be recovered easily if needed again.  

Firstly, identify the instances that have a Max CPU % less than 5% over the past 30 days. However, one should note that this doesn’t automatically mean those instances are zombie assets, but it’s worth further investigation.  

The Final Thoughts: 

AWS cost optimization is not a one-stop destination, but an ongoing journey. The dynamic and ever-evolving nature of the cloud makes it imperative for cloud customers to continuously adopt cost optimization activities and best practices. Businesses must continuously monitor their AWS cloud to determine which assets are underutilized or unutilized and identify the cost reduction opportunities by terminating zombie assets. Moreover, it is pertinent to monitor Reserved Instances to ensure they are utilized to their full potential.  

Cloud journey in itself is a complex process. And, managing and optimizing cloud costs can potentially bog your business down, if not planned strategically. This is where Continuum Innovations proves promising. 

As a leading AWS service partner, Continuum Innovations can help you realize full value from your cloud investments. Our cloud experts can manage your cloud costs and let you focus on your core business activities. Let’s bond together and make the cloud journey a success!