Cloud Cost Optimization
Cloud Cost Optimization
Your cloud bill is too high. Most engineering teams know it — they just don’t have the bandwidth to fix it.
I’ve helped companies reduce AWS spend by identifying and eliminating idle resources, rightsizing compute, and implementing scheduling for non-production environments. This engagement gives you a clear, prioritized savings plan and the option to have me execute it.
The Problem
Cloud costs creep up silently:
- Over-provisioned EC2 and RDS instances from initial estimates that were never adjusted
- Dev and staging environments running 24/7 at production-level capacity
- Orphaned snapshots, EBS volumes, and Elastic IPs accumulating over years
- No Reserved Instance or Savings Plan strategy — paying on-demand for predictable workloads
- Data transfer and egress charges that nobody is monitoring
- S3 buckets with no lifecycle policies storing years of logs at Standard storage tier
A team of 10 engineers burning $15,000/month on AWS often has $4,000–6,000 in recoverable waste. That’s headcount money sitting in idle resources.
What I Deliver
Phase 1 — Cloud Cost Audit
A comprehensive review of your AWS spend and architecture, completed in 5–7 business days.
What’s analyzed:
- AWS Cost Explorer breakdown by service, region, and tag
- EC2, RDS, ElastiCache right-sizing against actual utilization (CloudWatch metrics)
- Reserved Instance and Savings Plan coverage gaps
- Idle and orphaned resources (unattached EBS, unused Elastic IPs, stopped instances)
- S3 storage class distribution and lifecycle policy gaps
- Data transfer patterns and egress cost drivers
- Lambda and ECS Fargate cold start and memory configuration efficiency
What you receive:
- Prioritized savings report with estimated dollar impact per recommendation
- Quick wins (< 1 day to implement) vs strategic changes (1–4 weeks)
- Risk assessment for each recommendation — no surprises
- Executive summary suitable for presenting to finance or leadership
Phase 2 — Implementation (Optional)
I execute the recommendations, or work alongside your team.
- Terraform/IaC updates for right-sizing and configuration changes
- Reserved Instance and Savings Plan purchase strategy
- Auto Scaling policy tuning for variable workloads
- S3 lifecycle policy implementation
- Cost allocation tagging strategy and dashboard setup in CloudWatch or AWS Cost Explorer
- Ongoing cost anomaly alert configuration
Proven Results
- Cloud cost reduction — Insurance platform: stopped development environments outside working hours and rightsized compute instances, delivering meaningful savings without any application changes
- Deployment automation — Multiple clients moved from manual release processes to automated CI/CD pipelines, reducing the compute waste from long-running CI environments
- Production infrastructure — Fintech, telco, insurance, and SaaS environments across 10+ years of professional work
Engagement Options
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Cloud Cost Audit — Standalone assessment. Prioritized report with full savings breakdown. Ideal for teams who want to understand the problem before committing to changes.
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Audit + Implementation — Full engagement. Audit followed by hands-on implementation of approved recommendations. Fixed-price based on scope.
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FinOps Retainer — Monthly ongoing optimization. Covers cost anomaly investigation, new service cost review, and quarterly architecture reassessment. Priced per month.
Who This Is For
- Engineering teams on AWS spending $5,000–$100,000+/month with no formal FinOps process
- CTOs and VPs of Engineering who need to justify cloud spend to the CFO
- Startups scaling fast and watching AWS costs climb unpredictably
- Companies preparing for a funding round or profitability push who need to clean up the infrastructure bill
Why Work With Me
- 5 AWS certifications achieved — Solutions Architect, Developer, SysOps, and Cloud Practitioner
- Former AWS Authorized Instructor (2022–2025) — trained 200+ engineers; I communicate findings clearly to both engineers and finance stakeholders
- Production track record — not advisory-only; I’ve implemented these changes in live environments
- No vendor lock-in — recommendations are always in your best interest, not based on which AWS services I prefer
Next Step
Send me your current monthly AWS spend range and a brief description of your stack. I’ll confirm whether an audit makes sense for your situation and what the expected savings range would look like.
Contact: toni@kusnandar.dev or LinkedIn
Pertanyaan yang Sering Diajukan
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How much can you realistically reduce our AWS bill?
- It depends heavily on your current architecture and what's driving the spend. Common sources of waste are over-provisioned instances, dev environments running 24/7, orphaned resources, and no Reserved Instance strategy. In one insurance platform engagement, stopping development environments outside working hours and rightsizing compute delivered meaningful savings. I'll give you an honest estimate after reviewing your Cost Explorer data — not a number pulled from thin air.
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Do we need to refactor our entire codebase to see savings?
- No. Most cloud cost waste is infrastructure configuration, not application code. Right-sizing, reserved capacity planning, and cleaning up orphaned resources alone often deliver quick wins before touching a single line of code.
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What does the engagement look like?
- It starts with a Cloud Cost Audit (5–7 business days): I review your AWS Cost Explorer data, architecture diagrams, and resource utilization. You receive a prioritized savings report with quick wins and longer-term recommendations. Implementation can be done by me or handed to your team.
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What if our team doesn't have deep AWS expertise?
- That's exactly why you bring me in. As a former AWS Authorized Instructor who has trained 200+ engineers, I deliver findings in business and engineering language — not just AWS console screenshots. Every recommendation includes a plain-English justification and expected dollar impact.
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