Operational flexibility, scalability, and high speed innovation – AWS is the perfect tool for companies looking to achieve fast, large-scale results. But that pace and flexibility comes with a cost that can quickly get out of hand without proper monitoring and management. In this blog – part of our ongoing series of cloud case studies – we take a close look at how one of the world’s largest computer hard disk and storage companies used CloudFix to tackle this AWS cost challenge.

Their AWS cloud environment and setup

For the world’s most successful hard drive and storage company, digital transformation is a core part of their business strategy. With billions in annual revenue, the question for them wasn’t should they be on AWS, but how could they continuously reduce spend while achieving their growth and innovation goals? Before getting started with CloudFix, their AWS setup:

  • Ran multiple environments including High Performance Computing (HPC), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Policy Decision Point (PDP)
  • Used Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and Elastic Container Software (ECS) allotted container management with gp2 volumes within their HPC environment
  • Operated using high throughput IOPS

While their in-house optimization efforts helped to realize savings across their AWS environments, they recognized they could do better. Eager to discover new savings opportunities, they turned their attention to CloudFix.

Initial CloudFix concerns

In the beginning, their cloud computing team was unsure about CloudFix – most companies don’t want to buy more software if they don’t have to. While they liked the potential for more savings, their biggest concerns were around security, permissions, and the data CloudFix would need access to. But as they soon realized, CloudFix only requires minimal permissions that use AWS-approved security protocols. With their concerns addressed, everyone involved felt comfortable testing CloudFix on low priority accounts to see just how much they could save.

“We’re an advocate of cost saving, and we also use saving plans and reservations – we convert them on a monthly basis. So it was really hard for me to see that we actually had more savings using CloudFix.”

How they implemented CloudFix

This leading hard disk provider started with staged CloudFix testing on the following:

  • An Evolved Packet Core (EPC) development environment – they found zero workload reductions or limitations
  • Four low spend production accounts – they quickly saved 2% with seamless, non-disruptive fixes
  • A higher spend production account – they realized an additional 5% of savings

Satisfied with these first results, it was time for one last test.

Their big data platform (BDP) engineering account hosted a lot of EC2 instances and had high S3, Elasticsearch, and Elastic MapReduce (EMR) usage. With a monthly AWS spend of millions, this was one of the company’s largest accounts. CloudFix identified multiple recommendations that would instantly and continuously save them 5-6% on their AWS bill – a significant amount at scale.

“The way CloudFix works, it really is just one click. It surfaces all of the findings and provides a list of the savings that exist in the account. You literally just have to approve it. It was really transparent and really low impact.”

How CloudFix optimizes their IT working environment

Once the stakeholders of this world-leading hard disk and storage company saw significant, tangible savings — combined with security, ease of use, and reliability — they decided to adopt CloudFix across even larger accounts. The projected results of using CloudFix are significant:

  • They now expect to save up to a million dollars per year on their AWS bill
  • They have cut eight monthly hours per engineer on labor-intensive cost optimization work – time their 50+ team can now spend on innovation and growth opportunities

Today, this global storage leader uses CloudFix to streamline AWS cost optimization practices and take advantage of the low-hanging fruit of easy, zero risk, AWS-approved fixes. The end result: an automated, scalable process that helps cut substantial costs as their digital growth and innovation accelerates.

Check out our other blogs for AWS cost savings tips and cloud case studies or see how CloudFix automatically executes savings from AWS now.

CloudFix scans, automates, and executes 100% safe, AWS-recommended account fixes for optimal cloud hygiene. With AWS issuing 50+ recommendations each week for performance and cost, CloudFix continually adds news fixes to its growing library to ensure you stay compliant with AWS recommendations. Each fix that enters CloudFix’s library must meet two criteria: 1) it is zero risk and (2) it offers no downtime. Reduce complexity and boost efficiency with CloudFix.