Reducing your AWS spend: Top AWS Management Tools You have never heard of

Chris Fennell (Chief Operating Officer) 02-Aug-2023 09:34:00

AWS Cost Management

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers an array of powerful cloud services that can revolutionise your business operations. However, as you scale your infrastructure, AWS costs can escalate quickly, leading to unexpected and substantial expenses. To maintain financial efficiency without compromising performance, businesses need to optimise their AWS spending.

There are many AWS management tools available but here are a few I have used in the past. Depending on what you are running they might or might not be relevant, but always remember a tool by itself will only give you part of the picture.

CloudCheckr

CloudCheckr is a comprehensive cloud management platform designed to provide insights into AWS usage and spending. It offers actionable recommendations to optimize costs while maintaining operational excellence. With its easy-to-use interface, users can visualize their cloud resources, identify idle instances, and analyze usage patterns. CloudCheckr also assists in monitoring security and compliance, ensuring your cloud environment remains protected and efficient.

ParkMyCloud

ParkMyCloud specializes in one simple, yet powerful function: scheduling automatic start and stop times for non-production instances. Many companies run development, testing, or staging environments around the clock, leading to unnecessary costs. ParkMyCloud allows you to create schedules, ensuring these instances are turned off during non-business hours, saving substantial amounts on your AWS bill.

Kubecost

If you are running Kubernetes clusters on AWS, Kubecost is a game-changer. This open-source tool provides visibility into your containerized applications' resource usage and costs. By tracking the resource allocation of pods, namespaces, and deployments, Kubecost helps you optimize your container infrastructure, making it cost-effective and efficient.

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection, powered by Amazon DevOps Guru, is an AI-driven tool designed to identify unusual spending patterns and cost anomalies. It uses machine learning algorithms to analyze historical usage and spending data, alerting you when significant variations occur. By detecting cost spikes early, you can investigate and address potential issues proactively, preventing unnecessary expenses.

Nutanix Beam

Nutanix Beam is a multi-cloud optimization platform that helps you gain insights into your AWS usage, performance, and costs. It offers recommendations to right-size instances and helps identify unused or underutilized resources. Moreover, Beam provides governance policies to enforce cost-saving measures automatically, streamlining your cloud management process.

Spot.io

Spot.io is a cost optimization platform that takes advantage of AWS Spot Instances, which are spare EC2 instances offered at significantly reduced prices. By using Spot.io, you can automatically leverage these low-cost instances for non-critical workloads, such as batch processing and data analysis. This can result in substantial savings while maintaining workload flexibility.

Conclusion

Optimising your AWS spending is a crucial aspect of managing your cloud infrastructure efficiently. While well-known cost management tools can undoubtedly be helpful, exploring lesser-known options can uncover hidden opportunities for significant savings.

In the competitive cloud landscape, being financially prudent while ensuring optimal performance is paramount. With that in mind, you want a cloud management platform that does more than cost management. With IG CloudOps you get a powerful cost management module along with all of the other areas like security and monitoring that you need all in one portal-as well as a UK-based AWS team.

To find out more about CloudOps take a test drive.

Or speak to a member of our AWS team today.