Last March, we released a new product called ‘Spot Storage’ to provide simplified storage fleet management. It provides both a clear summary of existing storage usage and helpful recommendations on how to optimize storage costs. What recommendations, you ask? A great starting point is showing which unused storage resources are out there eating into your budget. For EBS volumes that are in-use, Spot Storage may recommend switching the EBS volume type.
The March release was just the beginning for Spot Storage. Presenting optimization options is helpful but being able to implement them with just a click is even better. With the enhancements available now, you can see the potential savings AND capture them with the click of a button. These recommendations provide substantial savings, even up to 90% of the overall storage cost.
Recommendation Cards
Recommended actions are presented on “call-to-action” cards inside the Spot Storage UI.
Each recommendation card identifies a different action. You can export the recommendations and plan your own implementation, or directly apply the suggestions right in the console.
Spot Storage now supports the option to apply these recommendations directly from the console.
- Delete unattached EBS volumes – Get a list of account’s volumes not attached to EC2 instances as candidates for deletion.
- Delete unused EBS volumes – Get a list of volumes attached to instances in a stopped state as candidates for deletion.
- Modify unoptimized volumes – Get a list of EBS volumes of type “io1” or “gp2” to have the type upgraded to “io2” or “gp3.” This provides better performance and reduces overall costs.
- Delete unused EFS – Get a list of unused EFS as candidates for deletion.
New optimization options
Starting today, Spot Storage includes a cost-optimization recommendation for “Unused Elastic File System (EFS)”. The “Unused EFS” recommendation lists every file system that was not mounted on any instance for the past two weeks. You will be able to delete them directly from the console.
In the upcoming weeks Spot Storage will introduce a “Migration to FSx for NetApp ONTAP” recommendation. This new recommendation highlights the potential savings realized by migrating existing EBS (and snapshot) storage to the FSx for NetApp ONTAP service running at AWS. Links will be available to provide helpful guidance on implementation.
What’s next?
Planned enhancements include:
- Recommendation log tab – A dedicated log tab to track events related to recommendations being applied.
- Global overview dashboard – A summary of potential storage savings at the organizational level. (Including all accounts that are part of the organization.)
- Automatic apply – Support for advanced scheduling of tasks to apply recommendations.
Stay tuned to hear more about our next round of enhancements involving Spot Volume support for smart management of existing EBS volumes. If you have questions or would like to learn more about Spot Storage, please reach out and contact us today.
