Optimizing Cloud Efficiency for Sierra Club: A Strategic AWS Cost Management Approach by ClearScale MSP
Challenge
Sierra Club faced escalating costs associated with underutilized and over-provisioned AWS resources, which created inefficiencies in their cloud infrastructure management.
Solution
ClearScale MSP conducted a comprehensive audit and optimization of Sierra Club's AWS infrastructure, focusing on key services like EC2, RDS, ElastiCache, and EBS. The solution included reservations, backup and snapshot management, and security enhancements.
Benefits
Sierra Club achieved significant cost reductions across its AWS environment. This included up to 40% savings on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud service, up to 44% savings on Amazon Relational Database Service, and up to 40% savings on Amazon ElastiCache service, as well as a 20% reduction in storage costs. The organization also improved infrastructure security and operational efficiency.
AWS Services
AWS Cost Hub, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS EC2, AWS RDS, AWS ElastiCache, AWS EBS, AWS CloudWatch, AWS Config, AWS Inspector
Executive Summary
Sierra Club, one of the oldest and most influential environmental organizations, sought to optimize its AWS infrastructure to better allocate resources and reduce operational costs. ClearScale MSP was brought in to perform an extensive audit of its cloud environment and implement targeted strategies to achieve significant cost savings.
Through meticulous analysis, live interactive sessions and strategic optimizations, ClearScale helped Sierra Club enhance the efficiency and sustainability of its cloud operations.
The Challenge
Sierra Club was facing increasing costs associated with its AWS environment, primarily due to underutilized and over-provisioned resources. With multiple cloud services running, the organization needed a clear strategy to optimize usage and cut down unnecessary expenditures. Without intervention, these inefficiencies could lead to unsustainable operational costs, potentially diverting funds from critical environmental projects.
The organization’s goals were to:
- Identify underutilized resources.
- Implement cost-saving strategies without compromising performance.
- Establish ongoing monitoring to maintain optimized infrastructure.
- Enhance the monitoring solution to include reservation alerts to ensure reservations are being made before the expiration date.
The ClearScale Solution
To address Sierra Club’s challenges, ClearScale MSP conducted a detailed audit of its AWS infrastructure, identifying key areas for cost optimization and efficiency improvements. The solution was multi-faceted, involving both immediate actions and long-term strategies to ensure continued savings.
The Benefits
As a result of ClearScale’s comprehensive audit and optimization efforts, Sierra Club achieved significant improvements across its AWS environment, bringing several key benefits:
- Substantial cost savings by leveraging reserved instances for EC2, RDS, and ElastiCache, leading to up to 72% reductions in expenses compared to on-demand pricing.
- Optimized resource utilization by aligning cloud resources more closely with actual usage patterns, minimizing inefficiencies, and improving overall infrastructure performance.
- Enhanced data management through the implementation of streamlined backup schedules and automated snapshot management, reducing storage costs while preserving critical data integrity.
- Improved security posture by integrating AWS services such as AWS Config and AWS Inspector, enhancing compliance and reducing vulnerabilities across Sierra Club’s cloud environment.
- Increased operational efficiency by establishing continuous monitoring and proactive adjustments to the AWS environment, ensuring ongoing cost optimization and system reliability.
These optimizations allowed Sierra Club to reallocate saved resources toward its environmental mission, enhancing Sierra Club’s ability to drive impactful change without being burdened by excessive cloud costs.