Top recommendations for optimizing costs
Overview
Cost optimization is one of the pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework
Top recommendations
The following table lists the top recommendations for the highest-impact cost optimizations. The "Difficultly to implement" column rates each optimization based on a scale of what's easiest to implement (1) to what's most difficult to implement (5). The "Estimated savings" column shows a percentage-based estimate of how much your organization can save for each recommended optimization.
| Optimizations | Difficulty to implement | Estimated savings |
|---|---|---|
| Right size Windows workloads | 3 | 25% |
| Bring licenses for Windows and SQL Server workloads | 3 | 30% |
| Evaluate SQL Server Developer edition | 2 | 20% |
| Understand SQL Server licensing | 2 | Up to 50% |
| Automate stop and start schedules | 3 | Up to 40% |
| Select the right instance type for Windows workloads | 1 | 10–30% |
| Refactor to modern .NET and move to Linux | 5 | 10–20% |
| Optimize spending for Windows on Amazon EC2 | 3 | Up to 20–40% |
| Migrate Amazon EBS volumes from gp2 to gp3 | 4 | Up to 20% |
Important
The estimated savings in the preceding table apply to each individual technical domain, not overall AWS spend within an account. For example, you can implement the Instance Scheduler in a variety of environment types and sizes that can alter the potential savings. The estimates apply specifically to Amazon EC2 instance costs and don't imply any overall savings for other AWS services. These estimates are provided as a gauge, not a guarantee.
MACO experts are available to talk about cost optimizations in more depth. To set up a
meeting for a deep dive into your use case, contact your account team or email optimize-microsoft@amazon.com
