Business Need

In the fast-paced world of finance, our client, like many other banking institutions, faced limitations with traditional infrastructure. The volume of transactions and the demand for real-time data access prompted the bank to explore innovative solutions. Embracing the cloud became a strategic move to overcome the constraints of on-premises infrastructure, ensuring scalability, agility, and enhanced customer experiences. Recognizing the need to modernize infrastructure to improve operational efficiency and adapt to industry trends, the client decided on a cloud migration as a step toward future-proofing operations against evolving market demands.

This transition represented more than a simple infrastructure upgrade; it was a shift toward a more streamlined, digitalized approach to banking operations.

Business Challenge

Cloud adoption brings complexities, especially when organizations enter the cloud without a deep understanding of cost management. Our client faced common challenges in their initial cloud transition:

• Understanding Cloud Pricing Models: Inaccurate cost estimates led to overspending due to a lack of understanding of cloud pricing structures, such as PAYG, Spot Instances, Reserved Instances, and Savings Plans.
• Over-Provisioning Resources: A lift-and-shift migration approach resulted in unused or underutilized resources, inflating costs.
• Lack of Capacity Planning: Failure to plan resource needs thoroughly led to overprovisioned and unused resources.
• Inefficient Use of Discounts: Insufficient assessment of long-term requirements led to inefficient reservation and savings plan purchases.
• Inefficient Storage Utilization: Overprovisioned IOPS and throughput increased storage costs.
• Failure to Explore Cost-Effective Alternatives: Missed opportunities for cost savings by not evaluating more affordable options.
• Unoptimized Databases: Poor database optimization led to high operational costs.
• Overlooked Data Transfer Costs: Ignored data transfer expenses resulted in unexpected charges.
• Misconfigured WAF Rules: Inefficient WAF rule configurations added unnecessary costs.
• Manual Resource Deployment: Manual processes led to increased labor costs.
• Unused Marketplace Software: Continued costs for unused Marketplace subscriptions due to limited visibility.
• Lack of Visibility and Transparency: Absence of cost tracking tools created challenges in budgeting and understanding costs.
• Lack of Tagging for Cost Allocation: Insufficient tagging hindered accurate cost attribution.
• Absence of Budgets and Alerts: Lack of budgeting and alerts resulted in uncontrolled spending.
• Weak Financial Governance: Absence of clear governance policies led to unmanaged growth in cloud expenses.

Facing escalating cloud costs, the client approached NuSummit to optimize expenses while maintaining availability, scalability, and user experience.

Business Solution

NuSummit developed a strategic Cloud Cost Optimization initiative, thoroughly assessing the bank’s operational landscape to address each challenge effectively.

Here are key components of the NuSummit’s solution:

• Rightsizing Resources: Adjusted resource allocations to match actual usage, reducing overprovisioning.
• Auto-Scaling and Auto-Shutdown: Enabled dynamic adjustments to resources based on workload demands, saving costs during non-business hours.
• Database Optimization: Optimized database performance through indexing, query optimization, and leveraging managed services to reduce costs.
• Cloud-Native Applications: Transitioned applications to cloud-native architectures, including microservices, enhancing flexibility, scalability, and cost efficiency.
• Data Transfer Optimization: Deployed resources strategically to minimize data transfer costs.
• Efficient Resource Allocation: Aligned instance types, storage configurations, and network options to application requirements.
• Cost Governance: Established centralized FinOps with cost allocation tags and implemented show-back and chargeback reporting.
• Monitoring and Optimization: Continuous cost monitoring and optimization through AWS Trusted Advisor and cost dashboards.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Deployed IaC (using Terraform and AWS CloudFormation) for automated infrastructure provisioning.

Project Differentiators

• Strategic Decoupling: Decoupled applications using microservices and serverless architectures, enhancing flexibility and reducing costs.
• Innovative Data Tracking Technologies: Introduced innovative data tracking across the data lifecycle, ensuring data integrity and enhancing project value beyond standard cost optimization.