Sheba.xyz, a prominent online service marketplace in Bangladesh, connects users with professional services like home repairs, cleaning, beauty, and maintenance. Catering to millions of service requests monthly, Sheba.xyz relies heavily on AWS (Amazon Web Services) to ensure a seamless user experience. However, as the platform scaled, inefficiencies in cloud resource management led to skyrocketing costs. Leveraging my expertise, I engaged in an end-to-end optimization of Sheba.xyz’s AWS infrastructure to streamline operations and achieve substantial cost savings. Using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method, here’s how we transformed their cloud strategy.

Situation

As Sheba.xyz grew, AWS infrastructure costs surged to $12,000 per month, posing significant financial strain. Key challenges included:

• High Infrastructure Costs: Ineffective resource management led to escalating costs.
• Underutilized Resources: Over-provisioned EC2, EBS, and ALB instances consumed unnecessary resources.
• Outdated Storage and Snapshots: Retaining obsolete snapshots and using costlier EBS GP2 volumes increased storage expenses.
• Lack of Cost Optimization Strategies: Absence of Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and billing alerts amplified unpredictability.
• Inefficient Database Management: Using Aurora MySQL unnecessarily inflated costs.

Task

My primary objective was to optimize Sheba.xyz’s AWS infrastructure to:

1. Reduce monthly cloud expenditure by at least 50%.
2. Ensure efficient utilization of resources while maintaining platform performance.
3. Introduce sustainable monitoring practices for long-term cost control.

Action

To address the challenges, I implemented a systematic optimization strategy:

1. AWS Infrastructure Audit:
   • Conducted a detailed assessment of resource usage.
   • Identified underutilized instances and redundant services.
2. EC2 Optimization:
   • Consolidated underutilized smaller instances into fewer, larger ones.
   • Decommissioned stopped instances still accruing costs.
   • Applied AWS Savings Plans and Reserved Instances to stabilize expenses.
3. EBS and Storage Efficiency:
   • Migrated from GP2 to GP3 volumes, achieving cost efficiency with improved IOPS.
   • Eliminated outdated snapshots of EBS and RDS instances.
4. Database Migration:
   • Transitioned from Aurora MySQL to the more economical RDS MySQL using AWS Database Migration Service (DMS).
5. Network Optimization:
   • Fine-tuned Route53 and VPC configurations to improve traffic routing and reduce latency.
   • Utilized ACM for cost-effective SSL/TLS certificate management.
6. Cost Monitoring and Alerts:
   • Integrated AWS CloudWatch to track performance metrics and enable real-time billing alerts.

Result

The implementation of these strategies yielded transformative outcomes:

• Cost Reduction: Monthly AWS expenditure dropped by 50% to $6,000 within the first month, with further optimizations targeting a reduction to $4,500 (62.5% total savings).
• Improved Resource Utilization: Consolidation of resources maximized efficiency without performance compromise.
• Enhanced Visibility and Control: Real-time cost monitoring tools provided actionable insights into AWS usage.
• Scalable and Reliable Infrastructure: Optimizations ensured the platform could handle increased traffic while maintaining high availability and performance.

Conclusion

Sheba.xyz’s cloud optimization journey underscores the value of strategic resource management and cost-saving practices. Through collaborative efforts and targeted interventions, we achieved significant cost savings, enabling Sheba.xyz to reinvest in customer-centric innovations and future growth. This case exemplifies how organizations can align cloud infrastructure with business goals to maximize operational efficiency and value.