Best of FinOps — July 2024

1. 1
   Article

   Medium·2y

   How We Decreased Our Monthly AWS Costs from $10,000 to $1,500

   Managing cloud infrastructure can become costly if not optimized. This guide shares steps to significantly reduce AWS costs from $10,000 to $1,500 per month. Key actions include cleaning up ECR images, optimizing ECS Fargate services, managing S3 storage, converting VPN usage to SSH tunnels, right-sizing RDS and DocumentDB instances, purchasing ECS savings plans, consolidating load balancers, removing redundant IPv4 addresses and environments, and right-sizing remaining resources.

   33

   1
2. 2
   Article

   finout·2y

   AWS Cost Optimization: 6 Free Tools & 10 Hacks to Cut AWS Bills

   AWS cost optimization helps manage and reduce cloud expenditures without compromising performance. Strategies include selecting appropriate instance types, utilizing discounted pricing models like reserved and spot instances, and leveraging free optimization tools such as AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets. Key practices involve right-sizing, increasing elasticity, optimizing storage, and continuous monitoring. Additionally, adopting hacks like exploring AWS bills, choosing the right region, and using spot instances can significantly cut costs.

   23
3. 3
   Article

   Community Picks·2y

   How to reduce Postgres compute costs as you scale

   Optimizing cloud costs is essential, and compute resources often consume the larger portion of your Postgres bill compared to storage. In managed services like Amazon RDS, compute costs are influenced by instance class, on-demand vs reserved pricing, and single-AZ vs multi-AZ deployments. Strategies for optimization include choosing the right database strategy, appropriately sizing instances, manually downsizing or pausing instances, and optimizing database queries. Neon offers an enhanced approach with autoscaling and autosuspend features, which dynamically adjust compute resources based on load, significantly reducing costs and management overhead.

   17
4. 4
   Article

   finout·2y

   7 Ways to Reduce AWS S3 Spend

   AWS S3 is a widely used scalable object storage service, but it can be costly if not managed efficiently. This guide provides seven strategies to reduce AWS S3 costs, including choosing the right storage class, setting up billing alarms, deleting unused objects, automating object management with lifecycle rules, minimizing cross-regional data transfers, compressing data, and partitioning data before querying. It highlights the importance of understanding S3 pricing components and leveraging tools like Finout for detailed cost management and optimization.

   11

   1
5. 5
   Article

   Cast AI·2y

   EKS Cost Optimization: 8 Tips To Reduce AWS Kubernetes Cost In 2024

   Overprovisioning is a major contributor to rising cloud bills, but optimizing these resources can be challenging. This post outlines eight practical tactics to reduce Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) costs without compromising performance. Key strategies include following Amazon EKS cost optimization pillars, utilizing Kubernetes cost monitoring tools, rightsizing virtual machines, leveraging autoscaling, setting resource limits, scheduling and decommissioning resources, using spot instances, and employing automation tools. A case study demonstrates how implementing these strategies can dramatically lower costs, showcasing a reduction from $414 to $138 per month with CAST AI.

   11

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6. 6
   Article

   finout·2y

   AWS Cost Management: Tools, Tips, and Advanced FinOps Practices

   Managing AWS costs is crucial for organizations shifting to cloud computing. While AWS provides tools like the Billing and Cost Management Console and Cost Explorer for tracking expenses, more advanced third-party solutions like Finout and CloudCheckr offer enhanced functionalities. Key practices for cost optimization include right-sizing resources, leveraging auto-scaling, using Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, and implementing cloud unit economics for advanced financial planning.

   10