Discover how we helped Liaison, a leading higher education technology company, reduce AWS costs by $1.8M annually while maintaining performance and scalability. Learn how strategic cloud cost optimization transformed their infrastructure into a growth driver.
See How We Did It
Liaison International, the leader in higher education admissions management solutions, manages millions of applications annually for over 1,000 programs worldwide. Their rapid growth and complex infrastructure presented unique challenges in cloud cost management.
With critical deadlines in the admissions cycle and the need for 100% uptime during peak application periods, Liaison required a sophisticated approach to optimize costs without risking performance or reliability.
We conducted an in-depth analysis of Liaison's AWS environment using our proprietary cloud cost optimization platform. Our key strategies included:
We analyzed resource utilization to identify overprovisioned instances and recommended resizing, reducing costs without impacting performance. For example, several m5.xlarge instances were resized to r6g.large, leading to significant cost reductions.
We reviewed usage data to identify workloads suitable for Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, establishing a portfolio of commitments that maximized the discount while managing the risk of under-utilization.
We analyzed licensed RDS databases and provided recommendations to optimize license usage, such as switching to bring-your-own-license (BYOL) models where appropriate.
Rightsizing, right typing, commitments and licensing decisions are inter related and were always considered jointly. This helps ensure maximum utilization of commitments.
We identified unused or rarely accessed EBS volumes, optimized EBS volume types based on actual usage, analyzed S3 buckets, and applied lifecycle policies to reduce storage costs.
We implemented a cost governance framework with real-time dashboards, providing Liaison's teams with visibility into spending patterns and preventing future cost overruns.
Within the first 12 months, Liaison saw an annualized reduction of $1.8M in AWS spend. Real-time cost monitoring allowed Liaison to keep spending in check and reinvest savings into critical initiatives. Improved visibility and control over cloud resources empowered their teams to make informed decisions about cloud usage.
Annualized reduction in AWS spend within the first 12 months of the engagement.
Overprovisioned instances resized and EBS and S3 tiers matched to actual usage.
Savings Plans and Reserved Instances aligned to steady workloads, reviewed jointly with rightsizing.
Real-time dashboards and alerts that keep spending in check and free budget for reinvestment.
"skie.io has been instrumental in helping us optimize our cloud infrastructure. Their expertise allowed us to significantly reduce costs while actually improving our system's performance and reliability. This partnership has enabled us to better serve our mission of making higher education more accessible."
— Liaison International Technology Leadership