Cloud Cost and Sustainability Excellence The AWS Optimisation Playbook

This two-day instructor-led course provides cloud professionals with the knowledge and practical skills to implement cost optimization and sustainability strategies in AWS environments. Learners will explore FinOps principles, AWS billing and tagging best practices, compute and storage efficiency, networking cost control, and automation techniques for proactive cost and sustainability management.

Designed for cloud architects, engineers, and IT operations teams, this course blends strategic insights with hands-on labs to help organizations align cloud usage with business goals, reduce waste, and build a cost-conscious cloud culture.

By the end of this course, learners will be able to:

• Apply FinOps principles to AWS environments for cost accountability and transparency
• Optimize compute, storage, and networking resources to reduce cloud spend
• Implement tagging, budgeting, and multi-account strategies for cost governance
• Leverage AWS tools for sustainability tracking and carbon footprint reduction
• Automate cost-saving workflows using AWS-native services and AI-driven insights

Participants should have:

• A working knowledge of AWS services and architecture
• Familiarity with cloud billing and pricing models
• Basic understanding of cloud governance and resource management
• Experience with AWS Organizations and tagging strategies is helpful but not required

Target Audience

This course is designed for:

• Cloud Architects
• Cloud Engineers
• IT Operations professionals

Module 1: AWS FinOps & Sustainability Essentials

Introduction to FinOps in AWS

• What is FinOps? Core principles and framework
• Key FinOps personas: Finance, Engineering, and Product teams
• The role of cloud architects and engineers in FinOps

AWS Sustainability & Environmental Impact

• AWS Sustainability Pillar in the Well-Architected Framework
• Measuring carbon footprint in the cloud
• AWS's commitment to 100% renewable energy and Net Zero

Cost Visibility & Governance

• Establishing cost accountability within teams
• The importance of cost allocation and chargebacks
• Policies and guardrails for cloud cost control

Balancing Cost, Performance & Sustainability

• Trade-offs between cost, sustainability, and performance
• Aligning technical decisions with business objectives
• Establishing a cost-conscious and sustainable cloud culture

Module 2: Mastering AWS Billing, Tagging & Multi-Account Optimisation

Understanding AWS Billing & Pricing

• AWS pricing models (On-Demand, Spot, RIs, Savings Plans)
• Decoding AWS invoices and billing reports
• Common billing pitfalls and how to avoid them
• Using the AWS Pricing Calculator to better understand cost of services

AWS Cost Visibility & Forecasting

• Navigating AWS Cost Explorer for cost insights
• Setting up AWS Budgets & Alerts
• Forecasting future AWS spend effectively

Tagging & Cost Allocation Strategies

• Importance of cost allocation tags
• Best practices for AWS resource tagging
• Enforcing tagging policies at scale

Multi-Account Management & Optimisation

• Benefits of AWS Organizations & consolidated billing
• Service Control Policies (SCPs) for cost governance
• Using AWS Control Tower for multi-account management

Module 3: Optimising AWS Compute & Autoscaling for Cost Efficiency

Right-Sizing Compute Resources

• Identifying underutilized EC2 instances
• Selecting the right instance families (Graviton, Intel, AMD)
• Leveraging AWS Compute Optimizer for recommendations

EC2 Cost Optimisation Techniques

• Spot Instances vs. On-Demand vs. Reserved Instances
• Optimising Auto Scaling Groups (ASG)
• EC2 Savings Plans vs. Reserved Instances

Container & Serverless Cost Savings

• AWS Fargate vs. EC2 for cost savings
• Kubernetes (EKS) vs. Serverless (Lambda) cost trade-offs
• Managing cold starts and execution time in Lambda

Scaling Efficiently with AWS Autoscaling

• Best practices for predictive and dynamic scaling
• Optimising instance warm-up and cooldown settings
• Using Karpenter for Kubernetes autoscaling

Module 4: Cost & Sustainability Optimisation for Storage & Databases

Optimising AWS S3 Storage Costs

• Storage classes (Standard, IA, One Zone, Glacier, Deep Archive)
• Lifecycle policies & intelligent tiering
• S3 request and data transfer cost optimisation

EBS & Instance Storage Efficiency

• Choosing between EBS GP3, GP2, IO2, and ST1
• Managing EBS snapshots efficiently
• Identifying and removing orphaned volumes

Database Cost Optimisation Strategies

• RDS vs. Aurora: Cost comparisons and tuning strategies
• DynamoDB on-demand vs. provisioned capacity
• Optimising Redshift clusters and concurrency scaling

Sustainable Data Management Practices

• Data minimisation strategies to reduce storage footprint
• Reducing redundant data copies and backups
• Leveraging AWS Glue & Athena for cost-efficient queries

Module 5: Reducing AWS Networking & Data Transfer Costs

Understanding AWS Data Transfer Costs

• Intra-region, inter-region, and internet egress pricing
• How to identify costly data transfer patterns
• Using AWS Cost & Usage Reports (CUR) for network insights

Reducing Unnecessary Data Transfers

• Best practices for VPC peering, Transit Gateway, and PrivateLink
• Using CloudFront and Global Accelerator for optimized routing
• Leveraging AWS Direct Connect and VPN for hybrid architectures

Networking Optimisation for Cost & Performance

• Right-sizing NAT Gateways & optimising Data Transfer Gateway costs
• Optimising ALB, NLB, and Gateway Load Balancer usage
• DNS cost efficiency using Route 53 latency-based routing

Module 6: Maximising Savings with RIs, Savings Plans & Serverless

AWS Cost Commitment Models

• Differences between Reserved Instances and Savings Plans
• Compute vs. EC2 Instance Savings Plans
• Convertible vs. Standard RIs: Which one to choose?

Maximising Savings Plan Benefits

• Best practices for purchasing & managing Savings Plans
• Leveraging AWS Cost Anomaly Detection for unused commitments
• Strategies to balance flexibility & cost efficiency

Serverless Architecture for Cost Reduction

• Reducing compute costs with AWS Lambda and Fargate
• Event-driven architectures for efficient resource usage
• Optimising Lambda execution time & memory allocation

Automating Savings Plan & RI Management

• AWS Compute Optimiser for commitment recommendations
• Cost Explorer & AWS Trusted Advisor for monitoring commitments
• Automating commitment purchases with AI-based analytics

Module 7: Automating Cost & Sustainability Optimisation in AWS

Using AWS Compute Optimiser for Cost Savings

• Setting up Compute Optimizer for EC2, Lambda, and ASG
• Understanding optimisation recommendations
• Integrating Compute Optimizer with AWS Cost Explorer

AWS Trusted Advisor & Cost Control

• Key Trusted Advisor cost recommendations
• Automating Trusted Advisor insights via AWS Lambda
• Leveraging AWS Budgets with Trusted Advisor

Sustainability Monitoring & Reporting

• AWS Sustainability Dashboard: Key metrics & insights
• Cloud carbon footprint tracking with AWS tools
• Strategies for reducing energy consumption in AWS

Automation & AI for FinOps & Sustainability

• Implementing automated cost-saving workflows
• AI-driven anomaly detection for cloud spend
• Using AWS Systems Manager & Lambda for automated cleanups

Exams and Assessments

There is no specific exam or certification associated with this course.

Hands-On Learning

This course includes the following practical labs:

• Optimising AWS Compute and Auto Scaling for Cost Efficiency
• Amazon EBS GP2 to GP3 Migration
• Handling S3 Objects Events With Lifecycle Policies and Server Access Logging
• Reducing AWS Networking Costs
• AWS FinOps Optimizing Costs Simulab