How To Fix Your AWS Cost Problems In 5 Simple Steps

The introduction of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the business sectors has revolutionised the ways businesses operate and manage their IT infrastructure. Businesses are no longer relying on conventional infrastructures. But mishandling your AWS setup can cost you a lot. Yes, AWS helps you save a lot of time and money by reducing your hardware installation and maintenance costs. But following an improper AWS management plan can cause you to pay hefty amounts in the end. Here are a few handy tips that you can use to fix your AWS cost problems:

1. Turn Off Stuff You’re Not Using

The best thing about AWS is its scalability. You pay for what you use. But this can also turn the other way around if you keep your resources idle, you pay for them regularly. AWS EC2 instances are charged in accordance with their time usage. You will be charged per-second for this instance even if you keep it idle.

You must detect such idle instances properly and shut them down immediately to reduce your AWS costs.

2. Use Cost Explorer

You don’t have to make guesses regarding your expected AWS costs when you have AWS cost explorer to help you visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs from all aspects. You can also generate reports and alerts to keep yourself updated and well-aligned with your budget.

AWS cost explorer will also help you detect any hidden anomalies that may be costing you unnecessary service charges. With AWS cost explorer, you will get better opportunities to optimise your costs.

3. Upgrade to the Latest Generation of Stuff

Amazon keeps launching upgraded instances to improve the efficiency and computing power. Often newer resources are cheaper, and by migrating your workloads to newer versions, you gain the benefit of these cost optimisations. You also get better performance with these upgrades!

4. Use Amazon Reserved Instances

Amazon Reserved Instances (RIs) can bring you significant discounts compared to the practice of scaling your instance purchases based on your demands. With RIs, you get a discounted hourly rate.

5. Get Rid of Obsolete Snapshots

Snapshots are an effective way on AWS to create a backup of your data. Most likely, you will only need the latest snapshots to restore the data. You can reduce your AWS costs by deleting those snapshots that are no longer of use for your business.