AWS Cost Optimization Guide
Infrastructure-level analysis of core AWS services. How engineering teams identify waste across compute, storage, databases, and commitment tiers.
EC2 Cost Optimization
Moving beyond basic rightsizing into memory-aware instance family selection and automated shutdown scripts for idle developer instances.
- Graviton (ARM) architecture migration for 20% price-performance gain
- Instance family tuning (e.g. upgrading c5 to c6i/c7g)
- Auto Scaling Group dynamic scaling policies vs scheduled scaling
RDS & Aurora Optimization
Database spend often represents 25-40% of SaaS cloud bills. Tuning IOPS and storage scaling protects both latency and budget.
- Aurora I/O-Optimized vs Standard selection based on query telemetry
- Pruning non-production read replicas and testing instances
- Automated staging snapshot archiving and lifecycle pruning
S3 Storage Optimization
Unmonitored data lakes and log buckets grow continuously. Automated lifecycle configurations prevent permanent storage inflation.
- Configuring S3 Intelligent-Tiering with zero operational impact
- Non-current version expiration for high-churn application buckets
- Abort incomplete multipart uploads (hidden storage cost driver)
EBS Block Storage
Orphaned volumes and legacy gp2 configurations silently add thousands in monthly unallocated infrastructure costs.
- Automated gp2 to gp3 volume conversion for instant 20% savings
- Detecting and snapshotting unattached volumes before termination
- EBS snapshot lifecycle policies via AWS Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM)
AWS Savings Plans & RIs
Navigating the balance between Compute Savings Plans, EC2 Instance Savings Plans, and standard Reserved Instances.
- Rightsizing workloads first before signing 1-year or 3-year commitments
- Calculating break-even utilization thresholds per instance family
- Coordinating commitment expiration calendars across parent payer accounts
AWS Billing & Cost Explorer
Turning millions of Cost and Usage Report (CUR) rows into actionable engineering ownership and unit economics.
- Tag hygiene enforcement across Terraform and Kubernetes namespaces
- CloudWatch cost anomaly detection alerts sent directly to Slack
- Multi-account AWS Organizations cost allocation best practices
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