Customer Issue

The Court of the Crown Prince (CCP) faced escalating monthly AWS costs due to inefficient use of cloud resources and suboptimal configurations. With multiple resources running without proper utilization strategies, CCP's AWS account required immediate intervention to optimize costs and ensure to maintain financial sustainability. The organization sought a reliable partner to assess their AWS environment, identify inefficiencies, and implement actionable recommendations to achieve significant cost savings while maintaining performance and security.

Solution

stc Bahrain’s Cloud Services team executed a comprehensive cost optimization activity centered on AWS tools and best practices. The solution involved three key phases:

1. Assessment and Data Collection:
   • Leveraging AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Trusted Advisor, stc evaluated resource utilization, cost breakdowns, and inefficiencies in the CCP AWS account.
   • Detailed data collection included backup and storage configurations, resource usage patterns, and retention policies.
2. Analysis and Recommendations:
   • Based on the data collected, stc identified high-cost areas, underutilized resources, and unused storage.
   • Recommendations included enabling compression and deduplication for backups, implementing data tiering strategies using AWS S3, and adjusting retention periods to optimize storage usage.
3. Implementation:
   • stc implemented AWS-native solutions, such as Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering for cost-effective storage and configured Scale-Out Backup Repository (SOBR) to improve backup efficiency.
   • New backup jobs were created and tested to, ensuring seamless functionality without disrupting existing backups.
   • AWS monitoring tools, such as AWS CloudWatch, were configured to provide real-time insights into resource usage, enabling proactive adjustments.

Benefits

The AWS-centric solution delivered transformative outcomes for CCP:

1. Significant Cost Savings:
   • The optimization activity resulted in a 15% to 20% reduction in CCP's monthly AWS bill, aligning with the expected savings range.
2. Enhanced Resource Efficiency:
   • By utilizing AWS S3 Intelligent-Tiering and implementing deduplication and compression, CCP achieved more efficient storage management, reducing unnecessary spending on underutilized resources.
3. Improved Visibility and Control:
   • AWS Cost Explorer and AWS CloudWatch provided CCP with detailed insights into cost drivers and resource utilization, empowering them to make data-driven decisions for future resource management.
4. Seamless Operations:
   • The implementation of Scale-Out Backup Repository (SOBR) ensured that CCP's critical backup processes were uninterrupted during the optimization activity.
5. Sustainability and Scalability:
   • With optimized storage and backup solutions, CCP's AWS environment is now more scalable and financially sustainable, supporting future growth without additional overhead.

The cost optimization activity demonstrated the power of AWS services in delivering efficient and sustainable cloud operations, further solidifying stc Bahrain’s role as a trusted partner for AWS solutions.