With the Cloud Cost Optimization Assessment, SUE identifies where your money is going on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, and which measures will yield the greatest returns. We then implement the cost-saving measures in collaboration with your team. In the AWS environments we analyzed, customers saved between 4% and 80% on their bills, with an average savings of 37%.
Getting rid of things that nobody uses yields the least benefit. The biggest savings are in databases, computing, and networking.
In the AWS environments analyzed by SUE, more than one-third of the waste is in databases, nearly one-quarter is in compute, and nearly one-fifth is in networking. Unused resources account for only 6.6% of the total. So if you only clean up, you’re leaving the lion’s share untouched.
That’s because a cloud environment evolves over time. What was a logical choice three years ago no longer aligns with current usage. That’s why we look beyond the invoice: at architecture, workloads, usage patterns, and procurement agreements.
On Azure and Google Cloud, the services have different names, but the assessment examines the same categories. We include Kubernetes clusters and multi-cloud environments in the same analysis.
Source: SUE cost analyses in customers' AWS environments.
A report that ends up in a drawer doesn’t save anything. That’s why the assessment is an ongoing process: we identify areas for improvement, work with you to determine what to prioritize, and then implement the optimizations. We work according to the principle “Show. Do together. Do yourself,” so that your team can do it on its own afterward.
01
We analyze infrastructure, cloud spending, workloads, and architecture based on your own cloud’s cost data. Among other things, we look at compute, database configurations, storage tiers, data traffic, serverless versus provisioned resources, unused and overprovisioned resources, and your procurement agreements. At Colect, we identified the most significant opportunities in just three days.
02
Not every cost savings measure is worth the effort. For each measure, we assess the savings, the effort required, and the risk—from quick wins to architectural changes. We align procurement commitments with your roadmap.
03
Our cloud engineers implement the optimizations: clearing out unused resources, resizing workloads, and adjusting the architecture where it can be done more cost-effectively and efficiently. Every change is verified and includes a fallback option.
04
A cloud environment is constantly changing. Through monitoring, periodic reviews, and knowledge transfer, we make costs an integral part of your cloud management. If desired, an AI agent (Agentic FinOps) can flag anomalies and opportunities, which a engineer then evaluates.
The choices that developers, engineers, and architects make today largely determine what you’ll pay tomorrow. That’s why we also show your teams what their choices cost. This way, they factor costs into every decision, just as they do with performance and security. To learn how to ensure this with FinOps, visit the Cloud Cost Optimization & FinOps page.
A breakdown of costs by account, service, and team
Measures ranked by savings, effort, and risk
Guidance on the coverage and term of purchase obligations
A Plan for FinOps: Roles, KPIs, and Review Frequency
The percentages are based on our analyses of AWS environments. We apply these measures to all three clouds; the services and procurement models differ by cloud.
Resize and merge instances, adjust database storage, choose between serverless and provisioned capacity (such as Aurora Serverless or Azure SQL Database serverless), and add indexes so that queries consume fewer resources.
Discounts for committed usage: Savings Plans and Reserved Instances on AWS, reservations and the Savings Plan for Compute on Azure, and committed use discounts on Google Cloud. In addition, Spot capacity for workloads that can tolerate interruptions, rightsizing, scaling policies, and ARM processors such as AWS Graviton, Azure Cobalt, and Google Axion.
Optimize NAT gateways, consolidate load balancers, route traffic through a CDN (CloudFront, Azure Front Door, or Cloud CDN), and eliminate public IPv4 addresses, which incur hourly charges.
Configure volume types (EBS, Azure Managed Disks, Persistent Disk), select the appropriate storage classes in S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Cloud Storage, and set up lifecycle policies.
Remove unused resources. We'll first show you what they cost so you can clean up without affecting important workloads.
Sometimes the savings come from the architecture or the application itself: a different database, serverless or provisioned, or an application that handles more work using the same infrastructure. On AWS, we combine that with an AWS Well-Architected Review.
SUE Cloud Native Solutions is a Dutch cloud-native solutions partner that modernizes mission-critical applications, reduces cloud costs, and manages your platform. Specialists in Linux, Kubernetes, and the cloud.
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Research papersA Cloud Cost Optimization Assessment is a technical analysis of your environment on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. SUE examines your invoice and what lies behind it: architecture, workloads, usage, and procurement agreements. You’ll receive a breakdown of costs by account, service, and team; a list of actions ranked by savings potential, effort, and risk; and advice on procurement commitments. We then implement the cost-saving measures together with your team.
That varies greatly depending on the environment. In the AWS environments analyzed by SUE, customers save between 4% and 80% on their bills, with an average savings of 37%. An environment that has grown over the years without being reviewed typically yields greater savings than one that has already been optimized. For Azure and Google Cloud, the assessment shows what savings are possible in your environment.
In the AWS environments analyzed by SUE, 34.9% of the waste is in databases, 23.4% in compute, 18.9% in networking, 12.2% in storage, and 6.6% in unused resources. The greatest savings, therefore, require a technical review of databases and architecture. Simply cleaning up yields the least benefit. We are examining the same categories on Azure and Google Cloud.
The biggest savings usually come from rightsizing oversized instances and databases, cleaning up unused resources, using Savings Plans or Reserved Instances for stable usage, reducing data traffic, and making architectural adjustments. SUE tackles this in four steps: (1) analyzing your AWS environment, from usage and architecture to procurement; (2) prioritizing measures based on savings, risk, and effort; (3) implementing the measures in a controlled manner together with your team, without compromising performance or availability; (4) sustaining the savings with FinOps: cost allocation by team, budgets, alerts, and regular reviews. You can read more about “ Our Approach ” here.
Start by gaining insights on a per-subscription and per-application basis using Azure Cost Management and the FinOps hubs from the Microsoft FinOps toolkit. Next, focus on right-sizing, cleaning up unused resources, making reservations for stable workloads, and making architectural choices such as using PaaS instead of VMs. With Cloud Cost Optimization, we’ll carry out these steps with you and embed them within your teams.
Start by gaining insights on a per-project and per-team basis, using labels and exporting your billing data to BigQuery. Next, we’ll perform rightsizing based on Recommender’s recommendations, clean up unused resources, and apply committed use discounts for stable workloads. For GKE, Autopilot—where you pay per pod instead of per node—can be more cost-effective for fluctuating workloads. With Cloud Cost Optimization, we’ll carry out these steps with you.
Please provide your contact information. We'll discuss your environment on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud and schedule the assessment.
Please provide your contact information. We'll discuss your environment on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud and schedule the assessment.
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