From Overspending to Savings: 5 Ways to Tame Your AWS Bill

INTRODUCTION

Cloud computing offers incredible flexibility and scalability, but costs can quickly spiral out of control without proper management. If you are using Amazon Web Services (AWS), there are several strategies you can implement to optimize your spending. This article will explore five practical ways to reduce your AWS bill without compromising performance.

1. Use AWS Cost Explorer and Budgets

AWS Cost Explorer is a free tool that provides detailed insights into your spending. AWS Budgets allows you to set custom cost and usage alerts.
The tool allows users to visualize spending, set alerts for spending exceeding a certain threshold, and predict future costs based on current usage.
Actionable Steps

1. Log in to AWS Management Console:
   • Go to AWS Management Console.
2. Open Cost Explorer:
   • Navigate to the Billing Dashboard.
   • Click on Cost Explorer in the left-hand menu.
3. Analyze Your Spending:
   • Use the default graphs to visualize your costs by service, region, or usage type.
   • Customize the date range to analyze historical data.
4. Set Up AWS Budgets:
   • Go to the Budgets section in the Billing Dashboard.
   • Click Create a Budget.
   • Choose Cost Budget and set a monthly spending limit (e.g., $500).
   • Configure alerts to notify you via email when you exceed 80% or 100% of your budget.

2. Right-Size Your EC2 Instances

Right-sizing involves selecting the most cost-effective instance type for your workload
To optimize resource allocation, avoiding over-provisioning unnecessary resources and matching instance types to your application's CPU, memory, and storage needs is crucial.
Actionable Steps

1. Open AWS Compute Optimizer:
   • Navigate to Compute Optimizer in the AWS Management Console.
2. Analyze Recommendations:
   • Compute Optimizer will provide recommendations for EC2 instances based on usage.
   • Look for instances marked as Over-Provisioned or Under-Provisioned.
3. Resize Your Instances:
   • Go to the EC2 Dashboard.
   • Stop the instance you want to resize.
   • Right-click the instance, select Instance Settings, and choose Change Instance Type.
   • Select a smaller instance type (e.g., from t3.medium to t3.small).
   • Start the instance again.

3. Leverage Spot Instances for Non-Critical Workloads

Spot Instances allow you to use spare AWS capacity at up to 90% off the On-Demand price.
This solution offers significant cost savings for fault-tolerant or flexible workloads, making it ideal for batch processing, testing, and development environments.
Actionable Steps

1. Open EC2 Dashboard:
   • Navigate to the EC2 Dashboard in the AWS Management Console.
2. Request Spot Instances:
   • Click Spot Requests in the left-hand menu.
   • Click Request Spot Instances.
   • Configure your instance type, AMI, and maximum price.
   • Set the request type to Persistent if you want the instance to restart after interruption.
3. Launch Spot Instances:
   • Review your configuration and click Launch.

4. Clean Up Unused Resources

Identify and delete unused or underutilized resources like unattached EBS volumes, idle load balancers, or orphaned snapshots.
The process aims to eliminate unnecessary charges for resources, and free up storage and compute capacity.
Actionable Steps

1. Use AWS Trusted Advisor:
   • Navigate to Trusted Advisor in the AWS Management Console.
   • Check the Cost Optimization section for recommendations on unused resources.
2. Delete Unattached EBS Volumes:
   • Go to the EC2 Dashboard.
   • Click Volumes in the left-hand menu.
   • Identify volumes with the state Available (unattached).
   • Select the volume and click Delete.
3. Clean Up Old Snapshots:
   • Go to the Snapshots section in the EC2 Dashboard.
   • Identify snapshots that are no longer needed.
   • Select the snapshot and click Delete.
4. Automate Cleanup with Lambda:
   • Use the following Python code snippet to delete unattached EBS volumes:

import boto3

ec2 = boto3.client('ec2')

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    volumes = ec2.describe_volumes(Filters=[{'Name': 'status', 'Values': ['available']}])
    for volume in volumes['Volumes']:
        ec2.delete_volume(VolumeId=volume['VolumeId'])
        print(f"Deleted volume: {volume['VolumeId']}")

• Deploy this code as an AWS Lambda function to automate cleanup.

5. Use Reserved Instances and Savings Plans

Reserved Instances (RIs) and Savings Plans allow you to commit to a specific amount of usage in exchange for discounted rates.
The solution offers a significant savings of up to 72% when compared to on-demand pricing, ensuring predictable costs for long-term workloads.
Actionable Steps

1. Analyze Your Usage:
   • Open Cost Explorer and analyze your usage patterns over the past 6 months.
2. Purchase Reserved Instances:
   • Go to the EC2 Dashboard.
   • Click Reserved Instances in the left-hand menu.
   • Click Purchase Reserved Instances.
   • Select the instance type, term (1 or 3 years), and payment option (All Upfront, Partial Upfront, or No Upfront).
3. Enroll in Savings Plans:
   • Go to the Savings Plans section in the Billing Dashboard.
   • Click Purchase Savings Plan.
   • Choose the plan type (Compute Savings Plan or EC2 Instance Savings Plan).
   • Set the hourly commitment amount and term.

Conclusion

AWS bill reduction does not have to be difficult. Through the use of technologies such as Cost Explorer, Spot Instances, right-sizing instances, clearing out unneeded resources, and subscribing to Savings Plans, you can drastically reduce expenses without sacrificing performance. Put these tactics into practice right now to take charge of your cloud spending.

Additional Resources

This article offers practical steps to optimize AWS costs, providing value to readers and allowing them to expand on any section of interest.

• AWS Cost Management Documentation
• AWS Trusted Advisor
• AWS Savings Plans
• AWS Compute Optimizer