3 Simple Ways to Reduce AWS Costs
Using a cloud may enable a business to have more flexibility, but it also creates a new stream of costs. Every user of cloud platforms such as AWS is concerned about cost optimization. Today we will discuss three simple yet effective ways of saving money on AWS.
Make use of reserved instances
The on-demand pricing model may be very flexible and convenient but, in fact, it is the most expensive billing method out there. However, with AWS you can use other options as well. Have a look at reserved instances, for example.
These servers are a pre-booked for a period from one to three years. The main point here is that the price of reserved instances is much lower when compared to the pay as you go capacity.
Switch off unused servers
Statistics tell us that up to 33% instances on AWS are idle, and as a result companies are paying an average of 36% more for cloud services than they actually need to. It generates $62 bn of cloud spending waste globally.
The problem seems big, but can be fixed very easily by just switching off unused cloud services. The pay as you go billing model works similarly to the pricing of utility bills. If you leave lights on while you are not home, your bill will be big. But if you start optimizing resources and switching lights off when you leave the house, it will lead to significant savings.
It might be hard to identify unused resources for companies with big infrastructure. And this is when tools like Cloud Timing come into play.
It is basically a script, that can be configured to switch off cloud servers according to a schedule (outside of working hours or holidays for example). Once this is done, the system will automatically shut them down when necessary - thereby saving up to 60% of business' cloud computing costs.
Here is a graph of an actual company202s month-to-month savings with our cloud cost saving tool:
Optimize storage
Analytics from RightScale have found that unused storage accounts for about 7 percent of cloud waste. This means that you should optimize storage usage in the same way as you do with instances.
There are some automation tools to perform this task that also find and cleanup old snapshots and other data that are not needed anymore, but that still eat up your IT budget.