The business world feels like it's on fast forward these days. New tech pops up all the time, and keeping your data safe is getting trickier by the minute. No wonder businesses need to make sure their IT infrastructure is in tip-top shape! An IT infrastructure audit is basically a checkup for your tech systems, making sure they're ready for whatever comes next.
An IT infrastructure audit evaluates your cloud environment, networking, compute, security controls, data management, and operational processes to ensure your systems are secure, performant, compliant, and cost-efficient.
What Is an IT Infrastructure Audit?
An IT infrastructure audit is a structured assessment of an organization’s technology environment. It evaluates architecture, security posture, resource utilization, compliance alignment, cost efficiency, and operational resilience.
The goal is to answer five critical questions:
Is our infrastructure secure?
Is it reliable and scalable?
Are we overspending?
Are we compliant with relevant regulations?
Is our architecture ready for growth or migration?
In our audit engagements, we follow a structured scope similar to the one outlined in our migration audit proposal audit, covering infrastructure review, cost assessment, performance analysis, and security evaluation.
Key Objectives of an IT Infrastructure Audit
An IT infrastructure audit plays a crucial role in shaping an organization's technical and business development plans. The technical plan outlines the requirements, goals, architecture, and resources for IT infrastructure development. An audit helps identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current system, define requirements for future development and improvement of IT infrastructure, and plan the necessary resources and budget to accomplish these tasks.
Core Objectives of an IT Infrastructure Audit:
1. Security & Compliance Evaluation
An audit performs a comprehensive review of:
IAM configuration and access control
Credential rotation policies
Encryption practices (EBS, S3, databases)
Security groups and network ACLs
Backup integrity
Logging and monitoring configuration
Compliance alignment (ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA where applicable)
For example, in one recent audit Infrastructure Audit Example, we identified:
Multiple IAM users without MFA enabled
Security groups potentially unused
Network ACLs allowing unrestricted inbound/outbound traffic
EBS volumes lacking encryption
Missing CloudWatch alarms for production services
VPC Flow Logs not enabled in critical environments
These are common infrastructure risks that organizations often overlook until an incident occurs.
2. Cost Optimization & Resource Efficiency
Infrastructure audits uncover waste and hidden inefficiencies.
We typically analyze:
Current cloud spend breakdown
Over-provisioned or unused resources
Reserved Instance/Savings Plan opportunities
Tagging strategy effectiveness
Budget and alert configuration
In our audit findings Infrastructure Audit Example, we frequently observe:
Lack of cost allocation tags
Missing AWS Budgets and billing alerts
Underutilized instances that could be right-sized
FARGATE workloads that could reduce cost by moving to ARM architecture
Dev environments running inefficiently without spot instance usage
Even modest improvements in right-sizing and cost governance can reduce infrastructure spend by 15–30%.
3. Reliability & High Availability
An infrastructure audit evaluates your ability to withstand failure.
Key checks include:
Multi-AZ deployment usage
Disaster recovery readiness
Snapshot automation
Auto-scaling configuration
Service limit monitoring
In one audit Infrastructure Audit Example, we identified that critical services such as RDS and ECS were not fully configured for Multi-AZ redundancy. While backups were enabled for RDS, other services lacked automated snapshot coverage.
These gaps can significantly increase recovery time during incidents.
4. Architecture & Networking Review
A structured infrastructure review includes:
Compute resources
Networking (VPCs, subnets, routing, security groups)
Storage & backup configuration
Databases and data flows
Monitoring & logging setup
High availability configuration
Disaster recovery readiness
For example, we often detect architectural risks such as:
Production and development environments sharing the same AWS account
Insufficient isolation between VPCs
Missing DNS health checks
No VPC Flow Logs for traffic visibility Infrastructure Audit Example
Proper environment segregation reduces blast radius and improves governance.
5. Data Management & Backup Strategy
An audit also examines:
Lifecycle policies for storage
Backup frequency and testing
Data retention compliance
Database optimization
In one review Infrastructure Audit Example, lifecycle policies were applied only to selected S3 buckets, and backup testing was limited to RDS, leaving other critical services unverified.
Regular backup testing is just as important as backup creation.
When an IT Infrastructure Audit is Essential
Alright, let's talk about when you'd want to get that IT infrastructure audit done. These audits are crucial for organizations these days - they help make sure your tech is running smoothly and can handle whatever comes your way.
Here are some key times when you'd definitely want to get an audit going:
Implementing new systems and tech
Bringing in new software, hardware, or information systems? Get an audit done first. It'll help you catch any potential issues or risks before you roll everything out, so you can make sure the new stuff integrates seamlessly and operates safely.
Your business is growing or changing
If your company is expanding, shifting gears, or just generally evolving, an audit can tell you if your IT infrastructure is ready to support those changes. It'll help you identify any problem areas, optimize your processes, and make sure your tech can keep up with the new business demands.
Beefing up your security
With all the cyberthreats out there these days, evaluating your system security is huge. An audit will show you where your vulnerabilities lie so you can shore up your defenses and protect your critical data and resources.
Streamlining operations
Audits don't just check for risks and problems - they can also uncover opportunities to optimize your processes and resources. Having that detailed look at how your tech is being used can help you cut costs, boost efficiency, and set the right performance metrics.
So in a nutshell, IT infrastructure audits are essential for organizations dealing with growth, changes, security concerns, or just a need to run a tighter, more cost-effective tech operation. They give you the insights you need to keep your systems performing at their best.
If you skip the audits, problems will just start piling up over time. Here's what can happen:
Lack of info and unreliable data
No IT audits means limited intel on the current state of your systems. You could end up using outdated or just plain wrong data when making important decisions. That makes planning a real headache and can lead to some seriously misguided strategic calls.
Security risks and vulnerabilities
Without regular audits, your organization is wide open to cyberattacks, data breaches, and other security issues. If you're not checking for weaknesses on the regular, you'll have no idea where you're vulnerable - and that's a disaster waiting to happen.
Wasted resources
No audits means you could be over- or underutilizing your resources, which kills productivity and wastes money on ineffective solutions. That's a surefire way to lose your competitive edge.
Doing those IT audits lets you get out in front of problems, optimize your resources, lock down your security, and make sure your tech is running like a well-oiled machine. It helps you make smart decisions, minimize risks, and keep up with your current needs.
IT Infrastructure Audit Process: Step-by-Step
A professional audit typically follows these phases:
1. Discovery & Scope Definition
Define systems, accounts, environments, and compliance scope.
2. Infrastructure Mapping
Document compute, networking, databases, storage, IAM, and dependencies.
3. Risk & Gap Analysis
Identify vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance gaps.
4. Performance & Cost Benchmarking
Analyze resource utilization and detect bottlenecks or waste.
5. Compliance & Governance Review
Evaluate policy alignment and monitoring coverage.
6. Deliverables & Roadmap Creation
Provide prioritized recommendations and remediation strategy.
IT Infrastructure Audit Checklist
Alright, on top of that stuff about the challenges of selecting an IT auditor, we've also put together an IT infrastructure audit checklist for you. This is like a handy reference guide to make sure you've covered all your bases when getting that audit done.
The checklist hits on all the major areas an auditor is gonna want to dig into - things like your cloud infrastructure, virtual environment, data storage, and overall service architecture. We break down the key things that need to be evaluated in each of those domains.
Cloud IT Infrastructure AuditDownload
It's a comprehensive list, but easy to follow along with. Helps ensure the audit is thorough and you're not missing any critical components of your IT setup. Just go through it step-by-step and you'll have a clear roadmap for the auditor to follow.
What You Should Receive After an Infrastructure Audit
Based on our structured audit deliverables audit, clients typically receive:
1. Audit Report (PDF + Editable Format)
Findings
Risks
Architecture gaps
Prioritized action list
2. Infrastructure Diagrams
Current (“as-is”) architecture
Proposed optimized structure
3. Migration or Modernization Roadmap
Phases
Timelines
Responsibilities
Risk mitigation plan
Testing & validation steps
4. Implementation Recommendations
Security hardening measures
Performance optimization steps
Cost reduction strategy
Backup and DR improvements
This transforms the audit from a report into a decision-making tool.
Common Infrastructure Audit Findings Across Industries
Across audits, the most frequent issues include:
IAM users without MFA
Overly permissive security groups
Lack of encryption on storage volumes
Missing production-level monitoring alerts
Unused or idle resources
Missing cost allocation tags
Incomplete disaster recovery testing
Shared prod/dev environments
No budget alerts configured
Underutilized auto-scaling
These are rarely intentional — they accumulate gradually as systems evolve.
Key Considerations when Vetting IT Infrastructure Auditors
Alright, let's talk about the common issues and challenges that organizations face when selecting an IT infrastructure auditor:
Auditor Qualifications. One of the main problems is determining the true qualifications and professionalism of the auditor. Customers often have a hard time evaluating the auditor's actual experience.
Accuracy and Objectivity. Ensuring the auditor will provide an unbiased, objective assessment is crucial. Customers want to be confident the auditor will thoroughly evaluate all aspects of the IT infrastructure without any preconceptions or subjectivity. Finding a reliable, responsible auditor who can guarantee the accuracy and objectivity of their work is a tricky task.
Service Costs. The cost of the auditor's services is another significant challenge. Customers need to strike the right balance between service quality and price. Comprehensive IT infrastructure audits can be quite expensive, putting them out of reach for some organizations. However, the lowest price isn't always the best criteria, as rock-bottom costs may signal low-quality work.
Availability and Timelines. Auditor availability and their ability to complete the work on schedule are other problems. Auditors are often booked on other projects or have time constraints, making it hard to find one who can fit the customer's schedule. Flexibility on timelines is important.
Trust Issues. Trusting the auditor is a core challenge. Customers need to be confident in the auditor's reliability and their ability to provide an accurate assessment. Checking references, reviews, and credentials can help address this.
Selecting an IT infrastructure auditor is a complex, high-stakes process. Thoroughly researching the auditor's background, experience, and reputation online can provide valuable insights. For example, at Gart Solutions, we publish client reviews and share details on our completed audit engagements.
How Often Should You Conduct IT Infrastructure Audits?
As a general rule, companies should conduct an IT infrastructure audit at least once a year. However, in some cases, more frequent audits might be necessary. For instance, companies handling sensitive data may require audits every six months or even quarterly.
The results of an IT infrastructure audit should lead to a series of action items, such as:
Addressing security vulnerabilities: The audit should identify any security weaknesses within the IT infrastructure, and steps should be taken to close those gaps.
Enhancing performance: The audit should pinpoint areas where IT infrastructure performance can be improved, and actions should be taken to implement those improvements.
Reducing costs: The audit should identify areas where IT infrastructure costs can be lowered, and actions should be taken to achieve those cost savings.
Developing a Business Continuity Plan (BCP): A BCP outlines how the company will continue operations in case of an IT outage. The audit should contribute to developing or updating an existing BCP.
A well-conducted IT infrastructure audit can significantly help businesses maintain a secure, performant, and cost-effective IT infrastructure.
The final report's got the full scoop on any issues or weaknesses they found in the infrastructure. This gives the leadership team a clear, unbiased view of where things are at and what needs to be fixed. Armed with those audit results, they can put together an action plan to boost the efficiency of the tech, optimize the processes, and shore up any vulnerabilities in the system.
The key is using that audit as a roadmap to getting the IT infrastructure operating at peak performance. No more guesswork - just cold, hard data to drive the improvements.
Gart Solutions - Your Trusted DevOps & Cloud Services Provider.
We have extensive experience conducting IT infrastructure audits that deliver the insights organizations need.
Our case studies:
Infrastructure Optimization and Data Management in Healthcare
AWS Infrastructure Optimization and CI/CD Transformation for a Crypto Exchange
New Infrastructure Design and GCP Cost Optimization for Telecom SaaS Application
AWS Migration & Infrastructure Localization for Sportsbook Platform
Infrastructure Audit Report Example
Infrastructure-Audit-ExampleDownload
Final Thoughts
An IT infrastructure audit is not a formality. It is a structured risk management and optimization strategy.
It enables organizations to:
Reduce security exposure
Improve performance
Control cloud costs
Strengthen compliance posture
Prepare for migration or scaling
Modernize with confidence
Skipping audits does not save money — it postpones problems.
A well-executed audit provides clarity, roadmap, and measurable improvements.
Fedir Kompaniiets
Co-founder & CEO, Gart Solutions · Cloud Architect & DevOps Consultant
Fedir is a technology enthusiast with over a decade of diverse industry experience. He co-founded Gart Solutions to address complex tech challenges related to Digital Transformation, helping businesses focus on what matters most — scaling. Fedir is committed to driving sustainable IT transformation, helping SMBs innovate, plan future growth, and navigate the "tech madness" through expert DevOps and Cloud managed services. Connect on LinkedIn.
In my experience optimizing cloud costs, especially on AWS, I often find that many quick wins are in the "easy to implement - good savings potential" quadrant.
[lwptoc]
That's why I've decided to share some straightforward methods for optimizing expenses on AWS that will help you save over 80% of your budget.
Choose reserved instances
Potential Savings: Up to 72%
Choosing reserved instances involves committing to a subscription, even partially, and offers a discount for long-term rentals of one to three years. While planning for a year is often deemed long-term for many companies, especially in Ukraine, reserving resources for 1-3 years carries risks but comes with the reward of a maximum discount of up to 72%.
You can check all the current pricing details on the official website - Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances
Purchase Saving Plans (Instead of On-Demand)
Potential Savings: Up to 72%
There are three types of saving plans: Compute Savings Plan, EC2 Instance Savings Plan, SageMaker Savings Plan.
AWS Compute Savings Plan is an Amazon Web Services option that allows users to receive discounts on computational resources in exchange for committing to using a specific volume of resources over a defined period (usually one or three years). This plan offers flexibility in utilizing various computing services, such as EC2, Fargate, and Lambda, at reduced prices.
AWS EC2 Instance Savings Plan is a program from Amazon Web Services that offers discounted rates exclusively for the use of EC2 instances. This plan is specifically tailored for the utilization of EC2 instances, providing discounts for a specific instance family, regardless of the region.
AWS SageMaker Savings Plan allows users to get discounts on SageMaker usage in exchange for committing to using a specific volume of computational resources over a defined period (usually one or three years).
The discount is available for one and three years with the option of full, partial upfront payment, or no upfront payment. EC2 can help save up to 72%, but it applies exclusively to EC2 instances.
Utilize Various Storage Classes for S3 (Including Intelligent Tier)
Potential Savings: 40% to 95%
AWS offers numerous options for storing data at different access levels. For instance, S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically stores objects at three access levels: one tier optimized for frequent access, 40% cheaper tier optimized for infrequent access, and 68% cheaper tier optimized for rarely accessed data (e.g., archives).
S3 Intelligent-Tiering has the same price per 1 GB as S3 Standard — $0.023 USD.
However, the key advantage of Intelligent Tiering is its ability to automatically move objects that haven't been accessed for a specific period to lower access tiers.
Every 30, 90, and 180 days, Intelligent Tiering automatically shifts an object to the next access tier, potentially saving companies from 40% to 95%. This means that for certain objects (e.g., archives), it may be appropriate to pay only $0.0125 USD per 1 GB or $0.004 per 1 GB compared to the standard price of $0.023 USD.
Information regarding the pricing of Amazon S3
AWS Compute Optimizer
Potential Savings: quite significant
The AWS Compute Optimizer dashboard is a tool that lets users assess and prioritize optimization opportunities for their AWS resources.
The dashboard provides detailed information about potential cost savings and performance improvements, as the recommendations are based on an analysis of resource specifications and usage metrics.
The dashboard covers various types of resources, such as EC2 instances, Auto Scaling groups, Lambda functions, Amazon ECS services on Fargate, and Amazon EBS volumes.
For example, AWS Compute Optimizer reproduces information about underutilized or overutilized resources allocated for ECS Fargate services or Lambda functions. Regularly keeping an eye on this dashboard can help you make informed decisions to optimize costs and enhance performance.
Use Fargate in EKS for underutilized EC2 nodes
If your EKS nodes aren't fully used most of the time, it makes sense to consider using Fargate profiles. With AWS Fargate, you pay for a specific amount of memory/CPU resources needed for your POD, rather than paying for an entire EC2 virtual machine.
For example, let's say you have an application deployed in a Kubernetes cluster managed by Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service). The application experiences variable traffic, with peak loads during specific hours of the day or week (like a marketplace or an online store), and you want to optimize infrastructure costs. To address this, you need to create a Fargate Profile that defines which PODs should run on Fargate. Configure Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) to automatically scale the number of POD replicas based on their resource usage (such as CPU or memory usage).
Manage Workload Across Different Regions
Potential Savings: significant in most cases
When handling workload across multiple regions, it's crucial to consider various aspects such as cost allocation tags, budgets, notifications, and data remediation.
Cost Allocation Tags: Classify and track expenses based on different labels like program, environment, team, or project.
AWS Budgets: Define spending thresholds and receive notifications when expenses exceed set limits. Create budgets specifically for your workload or allocate budgets to specific services or cost allocation tags.
Notifications: Set up alerts when expenses approach or surpass predefined thresholds. Timely notifications help take actions to optimize costs and prevent overspending.
Remediation: Implement mechanisms to rectify expenses based on your workload requirements. This may involve automated actions or manual interventions to address cost-related issues.
Regional Variances: Consider regional differences in pricing and data transfer costs when designing workload architectures.
Reserved Instances and Savings Plans: Utilize reserved instances or savings plans to achieve cost savings.
AWS Cost Explorer: Use this tool for visualizing and analyzing your expenses. Cost Explorer provides insights into your usage and spending trends, enabling you to identify areas of high costs and potential opportunities for cost savings.
Transition to Graviton (ARM)
Potential Savings: Up to 30%
Graviton utilizes Amazon's server-grade ARM processors developed in-house. The new processors and instances prove beneficial for various applications, including high-performance computing, batch processing, electronic design automation (EDA) automation, multimedia encoding, scientific modeling, distributed analytics, and machine learning inference on processor-based systems.
The processor family is based on ARM architecture, likely functioning as a system on a chip (SoC). This translates to lower power consumption costs while still offering satisfactory performance for the majority of clients. Key advantages of AWS Graviton include cost reduction, low latency, improved scalability, enhanced availability, and security.
Spot Instances Instead of On-Demand
Potential Savings: Up to 30%
Utilizing spot instances is essentially a resource exchange. When Amazon has surplus resources lying idle, you can set the maximum price you're willing to pay for them. The catch is that if there are no available resources, your requested capacity won't be granted.
However, there's a risk that if demand suddenly surges and the spot price exceeds your set maximum price, your spot instance will be terminated.
Spot instances operate like an auction, so the price is not fixed. We specify the maximum we're willing to pay, and AWS determines who gets the computational power. If we are willing to pay $0.1 per hour and the market price is $0.05, we will pay exactly $0.05.
Use Interface Endpoints or Gateway Endpoints to save on traffic costs (S3, SQS, DynamoDB, etc.)
Potential Savings: Depends on the workload
Interface Endpoints operate based on AWS PrivateLink, allowing access to AWS services through a private network connection without going through the internet. By using Interface Endpoints, you can save on data transfer costs associated with traffic.
Utilizing Interface Endpoints or Gateway Endpoints can indeed help save on traffic costs when accessing services like Amazon S3, Amazon SQS, and Amazon DynamoDB from your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
Key points:
Amazon S3: With an Interface Endpoint for S3, you can privately access S3 buckets without incurring data transfer costs between your VPC and S3.
Amazon SQS: Interface Endpoints for SQS enable secure interaction with SQS queues within your VPC, avoiding data transfer costs for communication with SQS.
Amazon DynamoDB: Using an Interface Endpoint for DynamoDB, you can access DynamoDB tables in your VPC without incurring data transfer costs.
Additionally, Interface Endpoints allow private access to AWS services using private IP addresses within your VPC, eliminating the need for internet gateway traffic. This helps eliminate data transfer costs for accessing services like S3, SQS, and DynamoDB from your VPC.
Optimize Image Sizes for Faster Loading
Potential Savings: Depends on the workload
Optimizing image sizes can help you save in various ways.
Reduce ECR Costs: By storing smaller instances, you can cut down expenses on Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR).
Minimize EBS Volumes on EKS Nodes: Keeping smaller volumes on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) nodes helps in cost reduction.
Accelerate Container Launch Times: Faster container launch times ultimately lead to quicker task execution.
Optimization Methods:
Use the Right Image: Employ the most efficient image for your task; for instance, Alpine may be sufficient in certain scenarios.
Remove Unnecessary Data: Trim excess data and packages from the image.
Multi-Stage Image Builds: Utilize multi-stage image builds by employing multiple FROM instructions.
Use .dockerignore: Prevent the addition of unnecessary files by employing a .dockerignore file.
Reduce Instruction Count: Minimize the number of instructions, as each instruction adds extra weight to the hash. Group instructions using the && operator.
Layer Consolidation: Move frequently changing layers to the end of the Dockerfile.
These optimization methods can contribute to faster image loading, reduced storage costs, and improved overall performance in containerized environments.
Use Load Balancers to Save on IP Address Costs
Potential Savings: depends on the workload
Starting from February 2024, Amazon begins billing for each public IPv4 address. Employing a load balancer can help save on IP address costs by using a shared IP address, multiplexing traffic between ports, load balancing algorithms, and handling SSL/TLS.
By consolidating multiple services and instances under a single IP address, you can achieve cost savings while effectively managing incoming traffic.
Optimize Database Services for Higher Performance (MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.)
Potential Savings: depends on the workload
AWS provides default settings for databases that are suitable for average workloads. If a significant portion of your monthly bill is related to AWS RDS, it's worth paying attention to parameter settings related to databases.
Some of the most effective settings may include:
Use Database-Optimized Instances: For example, instances in the R5 or X1 class are optimized for working with databases.
Choose Storage Type: General Purpose SSD (gp2) is typically cheaper than Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1/io2).
AWS RDS Auto Scaling: Automatically increase or decrease storage size based on demand.
If you can optimize the database workload, it may allow you to use smaller instance sizes without compromising performance.
Regularly Update Instances for Better Performance and Lower Costs
Potential Savings: Minor
As Amazon deploys new servers in their data processing centers to provide resources for running more instances for customers, these new servers come with the latest equipment, typically better than previous generations. Usually, the latest two to three generations are available. Make sure you update regularly to effectively utilize these resources.
Take Memory Optimize instances, for example, and compare the price change based on the relevance of one instance over another. Regular updates can ensure that you are using resources efficiently.
InstanceGenerationDescriptionOn-Demand Price (USD/hour)m6g.large6thInstances based on ARM processors offer improved performance and energy efficiency.$0.077m5.large5thGeneral-purpose instances with a balanced combination of CPU and memory, designed to support high-speed network access.$0.096m4.large4thA good balance between CPU, memory, and network resources.$0.1m3.large3rdOne of the previous generations, less efficient than m5 and m4.Not avilable
Use RDS Proxy to reduce the load on RDS
Potential for savings: Low
RDS Proxy is used to relieve the load on servers and RDS databases by reusing existing connections instead of creating new ones. Additionally, RDS Proxy improves failover during the switch of a standby read replica node to the master.
Imagine you have a web application that uses Amazon RDS to manage the database. This application experiences variable traffic intensity, and during peak periods, such as advertising campaigns or special events, it undergoes high database load due to a large number of simultaneous requests.
During peak loads, the RDS database may encounter performance and availability issues due to the high number of concurrent connections and queries. This can lead to delays in responses or even service unavailability.
RDS Proxy manages connection pools to the database, significantly reducing the number of direct connections to the database itself.
By efficiently managing connections, RDS Proxy provides higher availability and stability, especially during peak periods.
Using RDS Proxy reduces the load on RDS, and consequently, the costs are reduced too.
Define the storage policy in CloudWatch
Potential for savings: depends on the workload, could be significant.
The storage policy in Amazon CloudWatch determines how long data should be retained in CloudWatch Logs before it is automatically deleted.
Setting the right storage policy is crucial for efficient data management and cost optimization. While the "Never" option is available, it is generally not recommended for most use cases due to potential costs and data management issues.
Typically, best practice involves defining a specific retention period based on your organization's requirements, compliance policies, and needs.
Avoid using an undefined data retention period unless there is a specific reason. By doing this, you are already saving on costs.
Configure AWS Config to monitor only the events you need
Potential for savings: depends on the workload
AWS Config allows you to track and record changes to AWS resources, helping you maintain compliance, security, and governance. AWS Config provides compliance reports based on rules you define. You can access these reports on the AWS Config dashboard to see the status of tracked resources.
You can set up Amazon SNS notifications to receive alerts when AWS Config detects non-compliance with your defined rules. This can help you take immediate action to address the issue. By configuring AWS Config with specific rules and resources you need to monitor, you can efficiently manage your AWS environment, maintain compliance requirements, and avoid paying for rules you don't need.
Use lifecycle policies for S3 and ECR
Potential for savings: depends on the workload
S3 allows you to configure automatic deletion of individual objects or groups of objects based on specified conditions and schedules. You can set up lifecycle policies for objects in each specific bucket. By creating data migration policies using S3 Lifecycle, you can define the lifecycle of your object and reduce storage costs.
These object migration policies can be identified by storage periods. You can specify a policy for the entire S3 bucket or for specific prefixes. The cost of data migration during the lifecycle is determined by the cost of transfers. By configuring a lifecycle policy for ECR, you can avoid unnecessary expenses on storing Docker images that you no longer need.
Switch to using GP3 storage type for EBS
Potential for savings: 20%
By default, AWS creates gp2 EBS volumes, but it's almost always preferable to choose gp3 — the latest generation of EBS volumes, which provides more IOPS by default and is cheaper.
For example, in the US-east-1 region, the price for a gp2 volume is $0.10 per gigabyte-month of provisioned storage, while for gp3, it's $0.08/GB per month. If you have 5 TB of EBS volume on your account, you can save $100 per month by simply switching from gp2 to gp3.
Switch the format of public IP addresses from IPv4 to IPv6
Potential for savings: depending on the workload
Starting from February 1, 2024, AWS will begin charging for each public IPv4 address at a rate of $0.005 per IP address per hour. For example, taking 100 public IP addresses on EC2 x $0.005 per public IP address per month x 730 hours = $365.00 per month.
While this figure might not seem huge (without tying it to the company's capabilities), it can add up to significant network costs. Thus, the optimal time to transition to IPv6 was a couple of years ago or now.
Here are some resources about this recent update that will guide you on how to use IPv6 with widely-used services — AWS Public IPv4 Address Charge.
Collaborate with AWS professionals and partners for expertise and discounts
Potential for savings: ~5% of the contract amount through discounts.
AWS Partner Network (APN) Discounts: Companies that are members of the AWS Partner Network (APN) can access special discounts, which they can pass on to their clients. Partners reaching a certain level in the APN program often have access to better pricing offers.
Custom Pricing Agreements: Some AWS partners may have the opportunity to negotiate special pricing agreements with AWS, enabling them to offer unique discounts to their clients. This can be particularly relevant for companies involved in consulting or system integration.
Reseller Discounts: As resellers of AWS services, partners can purchase services at wholesale prices and sell them to clients with a markup, still offering a discount from standard AWS prices. They may also provide bundled offerings that include AWS services and their own additional services.
Credit Programs: AWS frequently offers credit programs or vouchers that partners can pass on to their clients. These could be promo codes or discounts for a specific period.
Seek assistance from AWS professionals and partners. Often, this is more cost-effective than purchasing and configuring everything independently. Given the intricacies of cloud space optimization, expertise in this matter can save you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
More valuable tips for optimizing costs and improving efficiency in AWS environments:
Scheduled TurnOff/TurnOn for NonProd environments: If the Development team is in the same timezone, significant savings can be achieved by, for example, scaling the AutoScaling group of instances/clusters/RDS to zero during the night and weekends when services are not actively used.
Move static content to an S3 Bucket & CloudFront: To prevent service charges for static content, consider utilizing Amazon S3 for storing static files and CloudFront for content delivery.
Use API Gateway/Lambda/Lambda Edge where possible: In such setups, you only pay for the actual usage of the service. This is especially noticeable in NonProd environments where resources are often underutilized.
If your CI/CD agents are on EC2, migrate to CodeBuild: AWS CodeBuild can be a more cost-effective and scalable solution for your continuous integration and delivery needs.
CloudWatch covers the needs of 99% of projects for Monitoring and Logging: Avoid using third-party solutions if AWS CloudWatch meets your requirements. It provides comprehensive monitoring and logging capabilities for most projects.
Feel free to reach out to me or other specialists for an audit, a comprehensive optimization package, or just advice.
Cloud migration costs are one of the most underestimated line items in enterprise IT planning. According to Flexera's State of the Cloud Report, organizations estimate they waste 32% of their cloud spend and much of that waste starts before a single workload ever moves.
Before committing budget to a migration, engineering leaders need three numbers: what you're currently paying for on-premise infrastructure, what the migration itself will cost, and what the cloud will cost you on an ongoing basis. Getting any one of these wrong can turn a cost-reduction project into a budget overrun.
This guide walks you through each phase with a practical framework built for CTOs, CIOs, and infrastructure leads who need accurate estimates, not ballpark guesses. If you'd rather get a tailored assessment from engineers who've done this across AWS, Azure, and GCP, Gart's Cloud Migration Services can help you build a solid business case from day one.
Key Questions to Consider Before Cloud Migration
Here are some questions businesses should ask themselves before migrating to the cloud:
Is downtime critical for the company? There is no need for the cloud if the business can wait a day or two for server and other component recovery/replacement without major consequences.
Has the equipment been purchased? How long ago? Cloud migration can be delayed if the servers are less than three years old and the company does not plan to grow rapidly.
Is a cloud solution necessary? A cloud solution is necessary if the project is new and the equipment is not yet available. Or if it is already working, the infrastructure is more than three years old, and one to four hours of downtime is critical for the company.
Other questions to consider:
What are the business goals for migrating to the cloud?
What are the specific applications and workloads that will be migrated?
What are the security and compliance requirements for the cloud environment?
What are the costs and benefits of migrating to the cloud?
What is the migration timeline and plan?
Who will be responsible for managing the cloud environment after migration?
Local Infrastructure Costs
To determine the potential financial benefits of migrating to the cloud, it is necessary to calculate the current costs of the local infrastructure as accurately as possible and obtain data on its performance. Only then will it be possible to determine the correct configuration of the cloud infrastructure and compare the current local costs with the planned costs in the cloud.
Costs are divided into direct and indirect.
Direct costs:
Capital expenditures:
Purchase of servers, storage systems, network equipment, etc.
Software licenses.
Data center construction or rental costs.
Operational expenditures:
Electricity costs.
Cooling costs.
Maintenance and repair costs.
IT staff salaries.
To calculate the total cost of local infrastructure, it is necessary to consider all of these factors. Once the total cost is known, it can be compared to the cost of cloud computing to determine whether migration is financially viable.
Direct Costs
Direct costs can be broken down into five main categories:
IT Equipment Acquisition: This includes the purchase of servers, storage systems, network equipment, and other IT hardware.
Data Center Colocation or Server Room Maintenance: This includes the cost of renting space in a data center or maintaining your own server room.
Software Licensing and Renewals: This includes the cost of purchasing and renewing licenses for operating systems, applications, and other software.
Hardware Setup and Maintenance: This includes the cost of installing, configuring, and maintaining IT hardware.
Software Updates and Equipment Service Contracts: This includes the cost of purchasing software updates and service contracts for IT hardware.
IT Personnel: This includes the cost of salaries, taxes, health insurance, vacation, bonuses, and office equipment for IT staff.
It is also important to consider the costs of HR, procurement, and accounting departments. These departments also spend some of their resources on ensuring the functionality of the corporate IT infrastructure.
Indirect Costs
Indirect costs are not as obvious as direct costs and can be more difficult to calculate. The main part of indirect costs is related to downtime, customer dissatisfaction, damage to business reputation, and lost profits. An example of indirect costs would be a corporate website crashing or freezing on Black Friday.
One way to calculate indirect costs is to review incident and degradation reports to determine how often and for how long the equipment fails. To calculate the amount of damage, it is necessary to multiply the downtime by the average hourly rate of employees.
Indirect costs:
Downtime costs:
Lost productivity due to system outages.
Revenue losses due to unavailability of applications or services.
Security risks:
Data breaches.
Compliance violations.
Business agility:
Inability to quickly scale up or down resources to meet changing business needs.
Cloud Migration Costs
Several key factors influence the cost of cloud migration. These include:
Defining migration goals: It is important to clearly define the goals of the migration before starting the process. This will help to determine the scope of the migration and the resources required.
Identifying key pain points: Once the goals are defined, it is important to identify the key pain points that the migration is intended to address. This will help to prioritize the migration tasks and focus on the areas that will have the biggest impact.
Data volume to be transferred: The amount of data that needs to be migrated will have a significant impact on the cost of the migration. It is important to accurately estimate the amount of data to be transferred and to choose a migration method that is appropriate for the volume of data.
Cloud service model: The cost of cloud migration will also vary depending on the cloud service model chosen. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) all have different pricing models.
Provider selection: The cost of cloud migration will also vary depending on the cloud provider chosen. It is important to compare the pricing and features of different cloud providers before making a decision.
It is also necessary to assess the readiness of local applications for cloud operation. This is necessary to understand what can be immediately transferred to the cloud, what needs to be modernized, and what is better left in the local environment. Costs will need to be calculated for each scenario.
The migration process itself is the most labor-intensive and costly part of the migration. The costs of this stage consist of the following:
Initial costs for deploying new servers and cloud services. At the same time, the organization will incur additional time and financial costs for local infrastructure and data synchronization.
Modification of applications and code, creation of new infrastructure according to business needs. A significant part of the costs is for labor.
Solving potential problems with data privacy and security during the move.
Overall, it is quite difficult to calculate the exact cost of migration. The cost of migration depends heavily on the skills of the team. The more qualified it is, the lower the cost of the move. A cloud provider or partner with the necessary competencies can help reduce the time and cost of migration.
When Do Cloud Migration Costs Actually Make Sense?
Not every infrastructure needs to move to the cloud, and the business case should drive the decision not the trend. Before modeling costs, it's worth asking a few honest questions:
How old is your hardware? If servers are under three years old and your workloads are stable, migration may not pencil out until the next refresh cycle.
What does downtime cost you? If your business can absorb a day of downtime for maintenance or recovery, on-premise may still be adequate. If one to four hours of unavailability means significant revenue loss, the reliability and redundancy of cloud infrastructure start to justify the cost.
Are you planning to scale? Cloud economics favor variable, growing workloads. A static, predictable workload running on paid-off hardware rarely gets cheaper in the cloud.
What are your compliance requirements? Healthcare, finance, and government workloads have specific data residency and audit requirements that affect which cloud architecture is viable and at what cost.
If the answer to most of the above points toward the cloud, the next step is accurate cost modeling across three distinct phases.
Phase 1: What Your On-Premise Infrastructure Actually Costs
Most organizations underestimate their true on-premise costs because they only track the obvious line items servers and licenses. A rigorous cloud migration cost comparison requires capturing the full picture, including the hidden spend that doesn't appear on a single invoice.
Direct Costs
Direct costs are the capital and operational expenditures that appear in budget reports:
Hardware acquisition: Purchase price of servers, storage arrays, networking equipment, and any planned refresh costs amortized over the asset life.
Data center or colocation fees: Rack space, power, cooling, and physical security whether owned or rented.
Software licenses: OS licenses, database licenses (Oracle, SQL Server), middleware, and monitoring tools. These are often the largest hidden cost when teams discover cloud-native alternatives.
IT personnel: Fully-loaded cost of infrastructure engineers, including salary, benefits, employer taxes, and tooling. Don't forget the proportion of HR, procurement, and finance time allocated to keeping infrastructure running.
Maintenance and support contracts: Vendor support agreements, hardware warranty extensions, and break-fix contracts.
Indirect Costs The Numbers Most Teams Miss
Indirect costs require more effort to quantify but often reveal the strongest financial argument for migration:
Downtime costs: Review your incident and degradation logs for the past 12-24 months. Multiply total downtime hours by the average hourly revenue impact of your business. For e-commerce or SaaS companies, even 30 minutes of downtime can represent tens of thousands of dollars.
Security and compliance risk: The cost of a data breach or a failed compliance audit is difficult to predict but straightforward to research. The IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report consistently places average breach costs above $4 million a number that reframes the security investment discussion entirely.
Opportunity cost: Infrastructure teams spending cycles on hardware maintenance are not building product features or improving system reliability. Quantifying the engineering hours "consumed by toil" converts an operational cost into a strategic one.
Practical tip: Build a simple spreadsheet that captures annualized direct costs and a 12-month average of indirect costs. This becomes your baseline for the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) comparison and the number you'll hold the cloud against.
Phase 2: What the Migration Itself Will Cost
Cloud migration costs during the transition period are often where budgets surprise organizations the most. The migration phase is inherently labor-intensive and the scope expands as you discover technical debt, licensing complications, and workloads that weren't designed for cloud environments.
Assessment and Discovery
Before you can scope the migration, you need a complete inventory of what you're moving. A thorough IT infrastructure audit typically reveals 20-30% more services and dependencies than teams expect. Discovery tools like AWS Migration Evaluator, Azure Migrate, and third-party platforms such as Cloudamize help automate this, but engineering time is still required to interpret results and make architecture decisions.
Migration Approach and Its Cost Implications
The migration strategy you choose has the single biggest impact on both cost and timeline. The six common approaches often called the "6 Rs" each carry different cost profiles:
Migration StrategyDescriptionMigration CostOngoing Cloud CostBest ForRehost (Lift & Shift)Move VMs as-is to cloud equivalentsLow-MediumHigher (not optimized)Legacy apps, speed priorityReplatformMinor changes to leverage managed services (e.g., move to RDS)MediumMedium (some savings)Databases, middlewareRefactor / Re-architectRebuild using cloud-native patterns (microservices, serverless)HighLowest long-termCore product workloadsRepurchaseReplace on-premise software with SaaS equivalentLowSubscription-basedCRM, ERP, collaboration toolsRetainKeep workload on-premise for nowNoneExisting on-premise costsCompliance-heavy, recently refreshed HWRetireDecommission unused or redundant systemsMinimalCost reductionLegacy systems, unused appsMigration Approach and Its Cost Implications
Most enterprise migrations combine multiple strategies. A typical engagement might rehost 60% of workloads for speed, replatform databases to managed services, and refactor a handful of business-critical applications. The ratio between these strategies defines your total migration budget more than almost any other factor.
Key Migration Cost Components
Beyond the migration strategy, budget for these specific line items:
Dual-running costs: During migration, you'll pay for both your on-premise infrastructure and your new cloud environment simultaneously. Depending on migration duration (typically 3-12 months for mid-size organizations), this can be a significant budget item.
Data transfer fees: Moving large data volumes to the cloud involves egress fees on the origin side and ingress processing on the cloud side. At scale terabytes to petabytes this becomes a material cost. Some providers offer offline transfer devices (AWS Snowball, Azure Data Box) for large datasets that are cheaper than network transfer.
Application refactoring: Code changes, testing, CI/CD pipeline updates, and security hardening are typically billed as engineering hours. This is the hardest cost to predict without a detailed discovery phase.
Third-party consulting fees: If you're using an external migration partner, expect to pay for architecture review, migration execution, and knowledge transfer. Qualified partners reduce risk and typically shorten timelines enough to offset their cost but this needs to be in the budget from the start.
Staff training: Cloud operations require different skills than on-premise management. Budget for formal training (AWS/Azure/GCP certification programs), hands-on workshops, and the ramp-up productivity dip as teams learn new tools.
Rule of thumb: For a mid-size organization moving 50-200 workloads, migration costs typically range from 1— to 3 the first year of ongoing cloud operating costs. The larger multiplier applies to complex refactoring projects; the smaller applies to lift-and-shift at scale.
Phase 3: Estimating Ongoing Cloud Infrastructure Costs
Post-migration, your cost structure shifts from CapEx (hardware purchase, depreciation) to OpEx (pay-as-you-go compute, storage, networking). This is where cloud cost optimization becomes a permanent operational discipline rather than a one-time exercise.
Primary Cost Drivers in the Cloud
Understand these categories before running any cloud provider calculator:
Compute: VM instances or containers are usually the largest cost category. Instance pricing varies by CPU/memory configuration, region, and commitment model (on-demand vs. reserved vs. spot).
Storage: Object storage (S3, Azure Blob), block storage (EBS, Azure Managed Disks), and file storage all carry different price points. Storage costs scale with volume, retrieval frequency, and redundancy requirements.
Networking and data transfer: Intra-region traffic is typically free or very cheap. Cross-region and egress-to-internet traffic can add up quickly, particularly for distributed applications with microservices across regions.
Managed services: Replacing self-managed databases, queues, and caches with managed equivalents (RDS, SQS, ElastiCache) adds cost but reduces engineering overhead. The net effect is often positive, but it needs to be modeled.
Support and monitoring: Enterprise support contracts with AWS, Azure, or GCP can run from 3% to 10% of monthly spend. Cloud-native monitoring, logging, and observability tools (CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, Datadog) also add to the monthly bill.
Choosing the Right Cloud Pricing Model
Cloud providers offer multiple commitment models that dramatically affect ongoing costs:
On-demand: Pay by the hour or second with no commitment. Maximum flexibility, highest per-unit cost. Appropriate for development environments and highly variable workloads.
Reserved instances (1 or 3-year commitments): Discounts of 40-72% vs. on-demand for predictable, stable workloads. Requires upfront commitment to instance type and region.
Spot / preemptible instances: Access spare cloud capacity at 60-90% discounts. Instances can be reclaimed with minimal notice appropriate for batch processing, data pipelines, and fault-tolerant workloads. See how one Gart client cut compute costs by 81% using Azure Spot VMs.
Savings Plans: AWS and Azure offer flexible commitment discounts that apply across instance families and sizes more flexible than reserved instances with comparable savings.
The FinOps Foundation recommends a structured approach to cloud financial management: start with visibility (who's spending what), move to optimization (rightsize and commit), and establish governance (prevent future waste). This framework is increasingly adopted by engineering organizations managing multi-cloud environments.
Cloud Provider Cost Comparison: AWS vs. Azure vs. GCP
Choosing the right cloud provider is a major cost lever. Pricing is competitive across the three hyperscalers, but differences in managed services, egress fees, licensing incentives, and enterprise agreements can result in 15-30% variance in total spend for equivalent workloads. Our detailed AWS vs. Azure vs. GCP comparison covers the technical and commercial trade-offs in depth.
Key considerations from a cost perspective:
Microsoft Azure offers significant discounts for organizations with existing Microsoft EA (Enterprise Agreement) licenses, particularly for Windows Server and SQL Server workloads through the Azure Hybrid Benefit program. If you're heavily Microsoft on-premise, Azure often wins on total cost.
AWS has the deepest catalog of managed services and the most mature reserved instance and savings plan marketplace. Strong for net-new cloud-native workloads and organizations without existing vendor commitments.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers sustained use discounts that apply automatically without any commitment, and tends to price compute and especially BigQuery (data analytics) competitively. Increasingly attractive for data-heavy workloads and Kubernetes-native architectures.
For organizations considering multi-cloud, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) maintains standards and tooling that reduce vendor lock-in and help teams manage costs across providers consistently.
Why Companies Overpay After Migration and How to Stop
The Flexera report is blunt: organizations waste about a third of their cloud budget. The root causes are consistent across company sizes and industries. Understanding them is the first step to avoiding them.
Over-provisioning at Migration Time
The most common and costly mistake: teams mirror their on-premise instance sizing in the cloud without rightsizing. On-premise servers are typically purchased with a growth buffer of 30-50%. Replicating that buffer in the cloud means paying for headroom you don't need, every month, indefinitely.
Rightsize during or immediately after migration. Use cloud provider cost explorer data to identify instances running below 30% CPU/memory utilization those are candidates for downsizing or consolidation.
Lack of Cloud Cost Governance
Without tagging policies, budget alerts, and ownership attribution, cloud spend becomes invisible. Individual teams spin up resources for testing and never shut them down. A development environment from six months ago keeps running at full cost. Storage buckets accumulate data nobody queries.
Implement tagging at the account level from day one. Assign cost ownership to engineering teams. Set up budget alerts at 80% and 100% of monthly targets. According to FinOps Foundation research, organizations with mature cloud financial management practices achieve 20-30% better cost efficiency than those without formal governance.
Failure to Monitor and Optimize Ongoing
Cloud cost optimization is not a one-time activity. Workloads change, usage patterns shift, and new pricing options emerge. Build a monthly review cadence that covers:
Reserved instance utilization rates (are you using what you committed to?)
Idle resource identification (stopped instances, unattached storage volumes, unused load balancers)
Data transfer anomalies (unexpected egress spikes that signal architecture inefficiencies)
License optimization opportunities (can any workloads move to open-source alternatives?)
For a detailed tactical playbook, see our article on 20 ways to optimize AWS expenses and save over 80% of budget. And for ongoing visibility, cloud monitoring best practices explain how to instrument your environment for both performance and cost signals simultaneously.
Wrong Cloud Model for the Workload
Not every application belongs in the public cloud at the same cost model. Review your workload portfolio against the three primary deployment options:
Public cloud: Best for variable demand, new applications, and workloads that benefit from managed services at scale. Highest flexibility, OpEx pricing model.
Private cloud: Appropriate for highly regulated workloads, organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements, or large enterprises with predictable, stable workloads where CapEx investment makes financial sense over a 5+ year horizon.
Hybrid cloud: The most common enterprise architecture keeps sensitive or stable workloads on-premise while leveraging public cloud for burst capacity, development environments, and new product development.
Future Cloud Infrastructure Costs
After the migration, the cost structure changes. There is a regular fee for computing resources. However, it is only possible to estimate the costs of cloud infrastructure approximately, since it is difficult to predict the exact amount of resources needed to host applications in the cloud.
Fortunately for the customer, the estimate is usually higher than the actual costs. This is because the estimate is based on their own equipment, which is purchased with a margin. In the end, VM resources are optimized, and scaling is done on an as-needed basis.
How to Avoid Unnecessary Expenses
Ironically, many organizations move to the cloud to reduce costs, but in reality they overpay. According to a 2023 report by the American company Flexera, respondents estimated that their organizations lost 32% due to overspending.
Therefore, before migrating, it is necessary to develop a strategy for working and optimizing in the cloud. Depending on the industry, strategies may vary, so it is important to start from the needs of the business and the real VM load.
Here are some tips for avoiding unnecessary cloud infrastructure costs:
Optimize Costs
It is important to track your monthly cloud spending to identify any areas where you may be overspending. If you are not using a cloud service, you should terminate it to avoid paying for it. You should rightsize your VMs to ensure that you are only paying for the resources that you need. You can use spot instances to save money on your cloud costs.
Control Resource Allocation
To avoid overspending, it is important to use the correct amount of cloud resources. Most often, part of the cloud storage volume is wasted because it is larger than necessary. According to Flexera, 40% of cloud instances exceed the workloads required for operation.
Here are some tips for controlling resource allocation:
When you create a VM, you should choose the right size for your needs. There are many different VM sizes available, so you should be able to find one that is a good fit for your requirements.
You can use resource groups and tags to organize your cloud resources. This will make it easier to track your usage and costs.
You can use autoscaling to scale your cloud resources up or down as needed. This will help you to avoid overprovisioning resources.
You should monitor your cloud usage to track your resource allocation. You can use a cloud monitoring tool to help you monitor your usage.
Read more: 20 Easy Ways to Optimize Expenses on AWS and Save Over 80% of Your Budget
Comparing cloud provider services
Comparing cloud provider services is a complex task, but it helps to reduce the overexpenditure of cloud resources. Organizations that work with multiple providers at the same time must regularly review their contracts, which helps to reduce their cost.
Revaluating assets
Conduct an assessment to identify and remove assets that have become unnecessary. It is also worth using cloud cost optimization tools.
Choosing a migration model
You can choose one of the three main models, namely migration to:
Public cloud
You purchase the capacities of one or more large data centers that simultaneously cooperate with many clients. This is an option that provides the business with the necessary flexibility and the ability to automate routine tasks.
Private cloud
Development and arrangement of your own cloud infrastructure on your own resources. This is a great solution for large companies with a developed IT infrastructure, a large number of branches, and those who find it difficult to maintain the operability of the system under the old conditions. A private cloud allows you to ensure absolute confidentiality of important data.
Hybrid cloud
A compromise option, when the main array of services and data is serviced on its own resources, and due to an external data center, the company has the opportunity to quickly and confidently scale, as well as test new technological solutions without the risk of "letting in" the main system.
Whichever option you choose, Gart Solutions will help you understand how to design and create a cloud for file storage and hosting your infrastructure, so that your business processes are as protected as possible from the influence of any factors, and are also efficient regardless of the scale of your activities.
Regardless of the method you choose for migration to the cloud, we will help implement all the possibilities of this choice in practice, including automatic backup to the cloud.
Real-World Cloud Migration Cost Results
Theory is useful but migration cost estimates become far more credible when grounded in actual project data. Here are select Gart engagements that illustrate the cost dynamics described in this guide:
Migration from On-Premise to AWS for a Financial Company Full infrastructure migration with compliance requirements factored into the cost model from the start.
AWS Performance Optimization via Nomad Cluster Demonstrating how architecture changes post-migration can dramatically reduce compute costs for intensive workloads.
ISO 27001 Compliance and Cloud Migration A case where security requirements shaped both the migra
Conclusion
Migration to the cloud and the transition to a new cost model can be beneficial for business if you approach this process responsibly: compare the costs of local infrastructure and cloud in advance, develop a strategy and carefully monitor costs. Gart Solutions will be happy to take over the "turnkey" migration to the cloud, freeing up the time of your company's specialists for the implementation of more important projects.
Roman Burdiuzha
Co-founder & CTO, Gart Solutions · Cloud Architecture Expert
Roman has 15+ years of experience in DevOps and cloud architecture, with prior leadership roles at SoftServe and lifecell Ukraine. He co-founded Gart Solutions, where he leads cloud transformation and infrastructure modernization engagements across Europe and North America. In one recent client engagement, Gart reduced infrastructure waste by 38% through consolidating idle resources and introducing usage-aware automation. Read more on Startup Weekly.
