This project aimed to optimize the monthly AWS expenditure for NOVA’s Client. NOVA’s team conducted a thorough cost analysis, utilizing AWS Cost Explorer, and uncovered several avenues for cost savings. Discoveries included over provisioned RDS clusters, dormant EBS volumes, data residing solely in the S3 standard tier, an excessively provisioned EC2 server, and an abundance of workload snapshots. Despite utilizing AWS reservations, the monthly bill exceeded $20k, necessitating strategic intervention to align costs with optimized efficiency. This initiative proved pivotal for stakeholders concerned about the economic sustainability of their cloud infrastructure.
Customer Needs
NOVA’s Client sought specialized AWS RDS Aurora expertise to fine-tune their database, addressing issues causing Rowlock delays and deadlocks, which disrupted services and impeded site performance. After expanding their DB cluster to resolve immediate issues, additional costs of over $3k monthly for on-demand RDS usage were incurred. Initially, their requirement centered around hiring a DBA to rectify persistent sluggish DB performance.
Upon resolving immediate issues, NOVA Cloud not only restored optimal performance but also earned client satisfaction with our AWS proficiency. This success facilitated a broader exploration of NOVA’s Client’s pain points, allowing NOVA to offer comprehensive solutions beyond initial database optimization, demonstrating our commitment to understanding and addressing evolving client needs.
“HIGHLY recommend Sajjad and his team at NOVA Cloud. I sent out a job request and had a good number of responses, but it felt like Sajjad really took his time in giving a well-thought-out response, and even included a possible solution in his response. Sajjad was easy to communicate with; his team of experts solved our issues, and we have even requested help with other projects and cloud infrastructure planning. I can’t recommend Sajjad enough”
– CTO of NOVA’s Client
Why did NOVA’s Client choose to work with NOVA Cloud?
In search of a dependable partner to optimize their RDS Aurora cluster, Client discovered NOVA Cloud. Following our inaugural collaboration, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) was not only satisfied but genuinely impressed with NOVA Cloud’s technical skillset and proven expertise within the AWS ecosystem. This initial encounter laid the foundation for a robust and trusting relationship, positioning NOVA Cloud as a strategic ally in Client’s journey towards AWS optimization.
About Client
Company Overview
NOVA’s Client is a privately owned, performance-based online marketing firm, specializing in online marketing channels and proven deep data analytics that optimize business strategies.
Their extensive knowledge about these areas helps them create performance based relationships with their partner companies, ensuring it’s a win-win situation for both parties.
The company ties together
real-world business needs with technology-driven solutions using excellent development skills and business acumen.
AWS Services Used
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Cost Explorer
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Cost Optimization Hub
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Compute Optimizer
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Cost Usage Reports
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AWS Reservations
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Compute Savings Plan
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Amazon QuickSight
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NOVA Cloud Solution
Phase 1: Detailed Cost Analysis and Resource Mapping
The project began with an extensive cost analysis, unraveling cost trends, meticulously mapping billable resources, and identifying idle assets. This phase served as the foundation for subsequent optimization strategies.
Phase 2: Rightsizing of RDS Workloads
Building on insights gained from fine-tuning RDS Aurora, NOVA Cloud closely monitored RDS workloads and determined that only half of the provisioned capacity was essential. This rightsizing delivered significant cost reductions while maintaining peak operational effectiveness.
Phase 3: Hybrid Reservation Strategy Implementation
To reduce on-demand compute billing, NOVA Cloud implemented a hybrid reservation strategy, including one-year reservations for all RDS and ElastiCache workloads, and a yearly compute savings plan. This approach resulted in a remarkable 85% reduction in computing on-demand costs.
In parallel, NOVA Cloud implemented lifecycle policies for Amazon S3 and Amazon EFS, seamlessly transitioning data based on access patterns to more cost-effective storage tiers.
Phase 4: Cleanup of idle resources
The penultimate phase involved meticulous cleanup of idle resources incurring unnecessary costs. Unattached volumes were systematically deleted, and outdated backup snapshots were removed, ensuring a streamlined and cost-efficient AWS environment.
Phase 5: Cost and usage visualization using Amazon QuickSight
The final optimization step was creating a QuickSight cost and usage dashboard powered by data from Cost Explorer. This dashboard helps clients monitor their month-on-month AWS costs and identify usage based on different service accounts.
Results & Benefits
Through cost analysis and rightsizing, our goal was to achieve better performance with reduced costs.
- ✔ Helped NOVA’s Client save over $80,000 annually in AWS bills
- ✔ Maintained operational excellence
- ✔ Achieved better performance with reduced costs