Cost Optimisation

Cost is a concern for most businesses when it comes to cloud platforms. While cloud providers offer a vast array of services that can help improve business agility and delivery, these services can become very expensive if they are not architected and managed correctly.

To have successful solutions running in the cloud, it is critical for the correct technology and processes to be in place, providing detailed visibility into ongoing expenditure, and for cost to be a key consideration when planning architectural patterns.

How can we help?

Recent published statistics from McKinsey showing that 75% of cloud migrations go over budget, but with our wealth of experience of building and optimising AWS solutions, we can help you with both preventative and reactive measures.

Our cost optimisation strategy consists of three phases, each building upon the outcomes of the previous phase.

Phase 1: Visibility

Without detailed visibility into cloud expenditure, it is very difficult to hone in on the most important focus areas. Knowledge is the first step to winning any battle, so we leave no stone unturned when analysing your AWS costs and make sure that everyone involved has the visibility and insight needed to understand every detail of their AWS usage and the costs associated with it.

In phase one, our engineers will work with you to collect and visualise your AWS cost data across all your AWS accounts. A comprehensive, interactive dashboard will be deployed allowing you to slice and dice your costs in a myriad of ways, see trends and anomalies and make informed decisions regarding where to focus cost optimisation efforts for the greatest impact.

In this phase it is possible to find some quick wins that can be implemented without digging deeper into the finer details of your workloads. These will be highlighted, providing a quick path to adding business value in the early stages of the engagement.

Phase 2: Diving Deeper

With greater visibility and focus areas highlighted in phase one, we use our expertise and wealth of experience in AWS to dig deeper into your workloads. It is paramount that we understand your use cases, architecture and the greater business context in order to make the most appropriate recommendations.

After working closely with you to gather this greater level of domain specific understanding, we will compile a report that includes everything you need to know about what can potentially be done to cut costs. The report includes details on what could be optimised and how, as well as an estimate on how much effort it would take to implement each recommendation. This allows you to determine where to focus your effort in order to gain the greatest savings, in the shortest period of time.

A workshop will be held at the end of the phase to discuss the report and ensure all stakeholders have a thorough understanding of the next steps.

Phase 3: Implementation

As a final step in the cost optimisation journey, we can work with your teams internally over an agreed engagement period and help implement the cost optimisation options of your choosing from the report of phase two. This will allow you to directly leverage our experience in working with AWS and building solutions for your own cost saving benefits. Of course, you may decide to undertake the implementation of the phase two recommendations with your internal teams alone. That’s cool, we won’t be too hurt if you leave us out and you will know where to find us if you do need a hand at any point. The Fundis are always happy to help.

Pricing

The complexity of a cost optimisation engagement grows based on the size of your AWS environment. We use monthly AWS spend as a yardstick for estimating complexity and pricing scales based on this.

Note: The prices below are indicative and may change depending on the specific complexity (or lack thereof) of your AWS environment once exploratory conversations have been completed.

Monthly Spend	Phase 1	Phase 2	Phase 3
$0 - $2,500	R15,000	R25,000	Price on request
$2,500 - $10,000	R15,000	R50,000	Price on request
$10,000 - $25,000	R15,000	R75,000	Price on request
> $25,000	R25,000	Price on request	Price on request

Break Even

Assuming we are able to save you 20% on your AWS bill (we hope for more of course!), after how many months would you break even should you engage with us on the first two phases of our strategy?

Monthly Spend	Cost of Phases 1&2	Monthly Savings	Break Even
$1,000	R40,000	R3,600	11 months
$5,000	R75,000	R18,000	4 months
$10,000	R90,000	R36,000	2.5 months

Choose only what you need

Since we understand that not everyone needs all three phases, we give our customers the option to have us assist with only providing visibility (phase one only), or with both the visibility and a report of potential optimisations (phase one and two only). Phase three is only possible if we’ve had the opportunity to work through the previous phases of the engagement with you.

If you have an AWS cost optimisation project you want to talk to us about, then please contact us.