When you need it
Your cloud bill grows faster than your business, and discounts alone have not closed the gap. You suspect the rest is built into the design, in network paths, oversized resources and test environments that run all night.
What sets the quote
- One cloud per engagement: AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.
- Sized from your monthly spend band, which you share on the free call, and a free read-only inventory query you run (AWS Resource Explorer, Azure Resource Graph or Google Cloud Asset Inventory).
- One week covers the services behind about 80% of your bill, typically up to 10 cloud services and 1,000 resources in 2 regions, plus the NAT and data transfer paths of up to 10 networks.
- Two weeks covers up to 20 cloud services, 3,000 resources, 4 regions and 30 networks.
- Both include your existing commitments: Savings Plans and Reserved Instances on AWS, reservations and savings plan for compute on Azure, or committed use discounts on Google Cloud.
- Larger estates, or more than one cloud, are quoted after sizing.
What changes
- You see which design choices drive your bill, ranked by saving and effort.
- The quick wins are live in your environment, delivered as code rather than left in a slide deck.
- Your commitments match what you actually run, with a plan for what to buy, change or let expire.
- Your team has a short list of further savings, with the trade-offs written down.
What you get
- Cost breakdown by service, environment and owner, from your billing data
- Review of NAT, data transfer and egress paths, with private routes that keep traffic off paid hops
- Commitment plan showing current use and coverage, and what to buy, change or let expire
- Right-sizing of compute and databases, and schedules that switch off non-production environments out of hours
- Storage and log retention rules matched to how long you really need the data
- Quick wins delivered as code and reviewed as pull requests
- Backlog of further savings with estimated impact, effort and trade-offs
- A 60-minute readout with your team
What we cover on each cloud
| Area | AWS | Azure | Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commitments | Savings Plans and Reserved Instances | Reservations and savings plan for compute | Committed use discounts |
| Network paths | NAT gateway and cross-zone traffic, gateway endpoints for S3 and DynamoDB | NAT Gateway and Azure Firewall traffic, inter-region transfer, service endpoints | Cloud NAT and inter-zone traffic, Private Google Access |
| Compute and databases | Compute Optimizer, Graviton, Spot Instances, RDS sizing | Azure Advisor, Spot Virtual Machines, VM and SQL sizing | Recommender, Spot VMs, Cloud SQL sizing |
| Storage and logs | S3 Lifecycle and Intelligent-Tiering, CloudWatch Logs retention | Blob lifecycle management and access tiers, Log Analytics retention | Object Lifecycle Management and Autoclass, Cloud Logging exclusions |
Not included
- Buying commitments; we recommend, you decide and purchase
- Application code changes such as query tuning or caching (listed in the backlog)
- Negotiating prices with your cloud provider or reseller
- Ongoing cost reporting after the engagement
What we need from you
- AWS: the AWSBillingReadOnlyAccess policy in the management account and ViewOnlyAccess in member accounts, plus your Cost and Usage Report if you have one.
- Azure: Cost Management Reader and Reader at the management groups in scope, plus Reservations Reader.
- Google Cloud: Billing Account Viewer, Viewer on the folders in scope, and BigQuery Data Viewer on your billing export.
- Write access to your infrastructure repositories for the quick wins; your team reviews and merges each one.
- Two 60-minute sessions: the owner of the cloud bill and your platform lead.
How it works
Free 30-minute call, then the sizing query and a written fixed quote.
Analyse billing data and architecture to find where the money goes.
Agree with you which changes to make now and which need a wider plan.
Deliver the quick wins as code, tested outside production first.
Walk through the results with your team and hand over the remaining backlog.
At a glance
- Duration
- 1–2 weeks
- Price
- Fixed quote after a free 30-minute call
- Delivered by
- Our lead architect
Related services
Cloud foundation check
In 1–2 weeks, we review your AWS, Azure or Google Cloud foundation against the CIS benchmark and tie every finding to evidence, the affected resources and a fix.
Zero Trust network review
A one-week review of how traffic enters, leaves and crosses your AWS, Azure or Google Cloud networks, with evidence for every finding, a target Zero Trust design and a prioritised roadmap.
Migration check
In 1–2 weeks, we assess what you run on-premises or in another cloud, with a migration approach per application, a wave plan and a cost estimate for AWS, Azure or Google Cloud.