Can you describe your approach to AWS cost optimization in a project or organization?

How To Approach: Associate

1. Discuss concrete experiences with AWS cost optimization in your current position.
2. Describe how you have used AWS tools and services to manage costs.
3. Explain how you utilized reserved or spot instances.
4. Outline the results of your cost optimization efforts.

Sample Response: Associate

During my tenure as a Cloud Engineer at CloudForte, I have had ample opportunities to work on AWS cost optimization for diverse projects.

One such experience involved optimizing the AWS costs for a data-heavy application. We started by thoroughly analyzing our AWS usage and costs using AWS Cost Explorer. Based on the insights gained, we changed some of our EC2 instances from on-demand to reserved instances, considering their continuous usage pattern. For some non-critical batch processing jobs, we leveraged spot instances to take advantage of lower prices.

In addition, we made regular use of services like AWS Trusted Advisor and AWS Budgets to monitor our expenses actively. These tools provided us with useful recommendations and alerts about our spending.

As a result of these efforts, we were able to reduce the AWS costs for the application by about 30%, without any compromise on performance or availability.