Savings Opportunities

Savings Opportunities is a premium feature that identifies specific ways to optimize your AWS costs based on your actual usage patterns and AWS best practices. This page provides a comprehensive view of all potential cost-saving measures available for your AWS accounts.

Accessing Savings Opportunities

To access Savings Opportunities:

1. Navigate to one of your connected AWS accounts from the AWS Accounts page.
2. Click on "Savings Opportunities" in the account's navigation menu.
3. Premium tier subscribers will see the full page of detailed opportunities.
4. Free tier users will see a subscription prompt to unlock the complete feature.

Understanding the Opportunities Page

The Savings Opportunities page includes:

• Account Information: Basic details about the AWS account being analyzed.
• Total Potential Savings: A running total of all identified savings opportunities.
• Prioritized Opportunity Cards: Recommendations sorted by potential savings value.
• Export to PDF: Option to download a detailed report of all opportunities.

Available Opportunity Types

SpendShrink analyzes your AWS environment to identify various types of cost-saving opportunities:

Compute Savings Plans

Widget Token: [WIDGET-COMPUTE-SAVINGS-PLAN]

Identifies potential savings from committing to consistent compute usage over a 1 or 3-year term. The recommendations provide multiple commitment options with detailed savings projections.

Key Benefits: - Offers up to 66% savings compared to on-demand pricing - Provides flexibility across instance families, sizes, and regions - Applies to EC2, Lambda, and Fargate usage

Implementation: - The card displays various commitment options (1-year and 3-year terms with different upfront payment options) - Each option shows estimated savings, required commitment amount, and ROI - Includes a table comparing all options to help you choose the most suitable plan

EC2 Rightsizing Opportunities

Widget Token: [WIDGET-EC2-RIGHTSIZING]

Identifies over-provisioned EC2 instances based on actual utilization metrics and recommends more appropriate instance types or sizes.

Key Benefits: - Targets instances with consistently low CPU/memory utilization - Provides specific instance type recommendations - Includes detailed cost comparisons and performance considerations

Implementation: - Lists specific EC2 instances that are candidates for rightsizing - For each instance, shows current utilization, recommended instance type, and estimated monthly savings - Provides implementation guidance with minimal risk to application performance

EBS Unattached Volumes Opportunities

Widget Token: [WIDGET-EBS-UNATTACHED-VOLUMES]

Locates storage volumes that are not attached to any instances but still incurring costs.

Key Benefits: - Identifies "forgotten" storage that can be deleted or archived - Shows total storage costs being wasted - Includes volume IDs and details for easy identification

Implementation: - Lists all unattached EBS volumes with their details including size, type, and age - Provides total potential monthly savings from removing these volumes - Includes step-by-step instructions for safely removing unused volumes

SageMaker Savings Plan

Widget Token: [WIDGET-SAGEMAKER-SAVINGS-PLAN]

Similar to Compute Savings Plans but specific to SageMaker usage, offering substantial discounts for committed usage of SageMaker instances.

Key Benefits: - Offers up to 64% savings on SageMaker workloads - Applies across instance families, sizes, and components - Supports all SageMaker ML instance types

Implementation: - Similar to Compute Savings Plans, shows various commitment options - Provides detailed savings calculations specific to your SageMaker usage - Includes guidance on selecting the right commitment level based on historical usage

Underutilized Load Balancers

Widget Token: [WIDGET-UNDERUTILIZED-LOAD-BALANCERS]

Finds load balancers with minimal traffic that may be unnecessary.

Key Benefits: - Identifies load balancers with very few requests - Shows monthly cost savings from removal - Includes usage patterns to help with decision-making

Implementation: - Lists underutilized load balancers with their request count and utilization metrics - Provides estimated monthly savings from consolidation or removal - Includes guidance on how to safely decommission load balancers

Unused Elastic IPs

Widget Token: [WIDGET-UNUSED-ELASTIC-IPS]

Locates allocated Elastic IP addresses that aren't associated with running instances.

Key Benefits: - Identifies IPs that are incurring charges without providing value - Shows potential monthly savings - Lists all unassociated IPs for easy management

Implementation: - Provides a complete list of unused Elastic IPs with their details - Shows how long each IP has been unused - Includes step-by-step instructions for releasing IPs or associating them with resources

RDS Savings

Widget Token: [WIDGET-RDS-SAVINGS]

Analyzes your RDS instances to identify optimization opportunities including rightsizing, reserved instance purchases, and storage optimizations.

Key Benefits: - Suggests appropriate instance sizes based on utilization - Recommends reserved instance purchases for stable workloads - Identifies opportunities to optimize storage provisioning

Implementation: - Lists specific RDS instances that could be optimized - For each instance, shows current metrics, recommended size, and estimated savings - Includes guidance on how to resize instances with minimal downtime

ASG Spot Opportunities

Widget Token: [WIDGET-ASG-SPOT-OPPORTUNITIES]

Shows potential savings from using spot instances in your Auto Scaling Groups.

Key Benefits: - Identifies Auto Scaling Groups that could benefit from spot instances - Shows estimated savings from converting some or all instances to spot - Provides guidance on maintaining reliability while using spot instances

Implementation: - Lists Auto Scaling Groups that are good candidates for spot instances - Provides estimated savings based on different spot-to-on-demand ratios - Includes implementation guidance and sample configuration for mixed instances policy

RDS Reservation Coverage

Widget Token: [WIDGET-RDS-RESERVATION-COVERAGE]

Analyzes your RDS usage patterns to identify opportunities for cost savings through reserved instances.

Key Benefits: - Shows database instances that have stable usage patterns suitable for reservations - Provides multiple reservation term options with savings calculations - Helps optimize your database costs for long-running workloads

Implementation: - Lists database instance families that could benefit from reserved instances - Shows different reservation term and payment options with ROI calculations - Includes guidance on selecting the right level of reservation coverage

S3 Storage Opportunities

Widget Token: [WIDGET-S3-STORAGE-OPPORTUNITIES]

Analyzes your S3 bucket usage patterns to identify objects that could be moved to more cost-effective storage classes.

Key Benefits: - Identifies infrequently accessed data that could use cheaper storage classes - Recommends lifecycle policies for automatic tiering - Shows potential savings from implementing recommendations

Implementation: - Lists buckets with optimization potential based on access patterns - Shows recommended storage class transitions and resulting savings - Includes sample lifecycle policies and implementation guidance

Implementation Guidance

Each opportunity card provides:

1. Detailed Description: What the opportunity is and how it works.
2. Estimated Savings: The projected monthly or annual cost reduction.
3. Implementation Steps: How to implement the recommendation.
4. Helpful Information: Additional context and considerations.
5. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Examples: For applicable opportunities, sample code to help implement the recommendation (for example, AWS CloudFormation templates).

Best Practices

• Prioritize by Value: Focus on opportunities with the highest potential savings first.
• Consider Business Context: Evaluate recommendations against your workload requirements and business needs.
• Implement Iteratively: Make changes methodically and monitor the impact before proceeding to the next opportunity.
• Regular Reviews: Check the Savings Opportunities page monthly as usage patterns and recommendations change over time.

Related Features

• Spend Overview: Use in conjunction with the Account Overview to understand overall spending patterns.
• Spend Insights: Dive deeper into specific service usage details before implementing recommendations.
• Spend Alerts: Set up alerts to monitor spending after implementing changes to ensure expected savings are realized.