Database & RDS Cost Optimization
Databases are usually the largest single line, and the least examined.
- Turnaround
- 5 business days
- Who it is for
- Teams where RDS, Aurora or Azure SQL is a top-two cost line.
01 — The problem
Databases get provisioned for a peak that was estimated, then never revisited. Multi-AZ gets switched on everywhere regardless of whether the workload warrants it, and storage grows without anyone owning retention.
02 — What is included
Exactly what you get, and nothing vague.
- Instance sizing against real connection counts, CPU and IOPS
- Aurora Serverless v2 and Graviton suitability assessment
- Multi-AZ necessity review, environment by environment
- Storage growth, autovacuum health and retention policy
- Read replica utilisation: which ones earn their cost
03 — What this usually finds
The recurring ones, named up front.
- Multi-AZ on development databases
- Read replicas created for a feature that shipped differently
- Provisioned IOPS far above measured need
- Backup retention set once and never matched to policy
Listed because they recur, not because they are guaranteed. The audit reports what is actually there.
Next step
Twenty minutes to find out whether this is worth doing.
Every engagement runs under a signed mutual NDA with a read-only IAM role. If the audit would not pay for itself, I will say so on the call.