DEV Community: Exequiel Barrirero

How a Fintech Achieved 30% AWS Cost Optimization—And Redefined Its Future

Exequiel Barrirero — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 15:05:56 +0000

When business met growth

Scaling a business is often celebrated as a sign of success.

Yet, beneath the surface, growth brings its own set of challenges. Operational inefficiencies, rising costs, and the pressure to meet ever-changing customer expectations can quickly erode margins and stifle innovation.
For Flexibility, a key player in fintech and digital banking solutions based in Argentina, these growing pains had reached a tipping point.
It was clear that their growth would become unsustainable without a radical shift in approach.

Co-authored by Exequiel Barrirero and Juan Matias (KungFoo) De la Camara

As the co-founder and CEO of binbash, an AWS Advanced Partner specializing in startups, I'm proud to share this transformation story. Together with KungFoo, we crafted this article to highlight the power of cloud technology and strategic partnerships in driving sustainable growth. This case study showcases the profound impact of leveraging AWS solutions to address real-world business challenges.

Back to the Future

This is the story of how flexibility transformed its operations, cutting costs by 30% and positioning itself for long-term success - all through the power of cloud technology and strategic partnership.

Figure: This was Flexibility's infrastructure at the start of the project.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The company's infrastructure was a patchwork of static systems designed for a simpler time. Fixed capacity meant that during peak demand, the system struggled, leading to service interruptions. Conversely, during quieter periods, resources sat idle, wasting money. The lack of flexibility not only hindered performance but also left the team constantly firefighting

A New Hope

binbash entered the scene with a clear plan: transform flexibility's infrastructure into a dynamic, cloud-native environment. The strategy focused on leveraging AWS tools to address the core issues at hand.

Environment Consolidation & Scaling

The first step was implementing AWS Auto Scaling w/ K8s Cluster Autoscaler for AWS EKS, which enabled the infrastructure and containers to automatically adjust capacity based on real-time demand. This ensured optimal resource use, eliminating overprovisioning and costly downtime during peak periods. Complementing this, Amazon EC2 Spot Instances were introduced to further optimize costs by utilizing unused EC2 capacity.

Subsequently, we consolidated multiple lower-tier environment accounts, including Dev, QA, and Stg, into a single multi-tenant (multi-environment) Kubernetes EKS cluster. This approach significantly reduced resource duplication and operational costs while streamlining management and improving efficiency.

Dev/Stg & QA Consolidation: Streamlining development, staging, and quality assurance environments improved efficiency and resource utilization. Less clusters to administrate

Visibility

Flexibility's previous lack of system visibility was another critical issue. binbash deployed Amazon CloudWatch + Prometheus and Grafana to provide real-time monitoring and alerting. This tool gave the operations team comprehensive insights into system health, allowing them to proactively address potential problems before they affected users.

Automation & EKS Upgrades

To reduce manual intervention, binbash introduced binbash Leverage™ from the very beginning of the project . Tasks such as EKS infra deployment and upgrades, which once consumed valuable time, were now handled autonomously. Additionally, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform through our Leverage Ref Architecture for AWS was adopted, streamlining the deployment and management of AWS resources while ensuring consistency across environments.

Kubernetes Clusters Upgrade: Completing upgrades for all clusters to version >1.26 ensured the latest security patches and functionalities were in place.

Figure: Optimization 1 | Architecture w/ Spot EKS Nodes for Dev & QA.

Cost optimization

Cost control was a central focus. By analyzing usage data through AWS Cost Explorer and implementing AWS Reserved Instances, Flexibility achieved significant savings. Also implemented AWS Budgets and Billing Alerts for cost monitoring. These tools provided detailed insights into spending patterns, allowing for smarter financial planning and resource allocation.

Cost Optimization: Implementing Reserved Instances resulted in a significant reduction of 30% in overall cloud expenditure.

Figure: Optimization 2 | This is Flexibility's Architecture w/ DevStg & QA consolidated in a single account VPC + EKS + RDS engine.

Security & Compliance

Security, an essential aspect of any fintech and digital banking platform, was strengthened with AWS Identity Center (formerly SSO) and Access Management (IAM). binbash implemented granular access controls and multi-factor authentication to safeguard sensitive data, aligning with industry regulations and boosting customer trust.

To the infinite and beyond

The transformation didn't stop at technology. binbash worked closely with Flexibility's teams to ensure a smooth transition, providing training and support to embed new processes. This partnership approach fostered a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.
The results were transformative. Flexibility not only reduced operational costs by 30% but also enhanced service reliability and speed.

Customers noticed the difference, and the company solidified its market position.

Internally, the shift from reactive to proactive operations empowered teams to focus on strategic growth initiatives.

Crucially, the project included a robust knowledge transfer component, empowering Flexibility's team to maintain and operate the upgraded infrastructure autonomously.

A Walk in the Cloud

Flexibility's journey is a testament to how embracing cloud technology and strategic partnerships can drive meaningful change. This transformation not only optimized costs and performance but also redefined the company's trajectory toward sustainable growth.

For organizations navigating similar challenges, this case serves as a beacon: innovation and adaptability are not just options - they are necessities in today's fast-paced digital landscape. With the right tools and a clear strategy, the future is not just scalable; it's limitless.

Choose the Right Architecture for your Startup on AWS as a CTO 🏗️☁️

Exequiel Barrirero — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 20:38:39 +0000

As a CTO of a StartUp, one of the most important decisions you'll make is choosing the right architecture for your business on AWS (Amazon Web Services). And using AWS can be a game-changer for your project. This cloud computing platform offers a wide range of services that can help StartUps scale and grow quickly. However, with any new technology, there are some very important considerations that early-stage companies should consider when getting started on AWS. Your AWS architecture can greatly impact the scalability, security, and cost efficiency of your initiative. In this article, we'll discuss the key considerations and steps a CTO should take when choosing the right architecture for their deployment on AWS.

After posting our 1st AWS StartUps related post "10 Mistakes StartUp Founders Make when Getting Started on AWS", today we would like to share a 2nd article inspired by our participation at the AWS Technical Founder Sprint: Best practices to take your startup from zero to one in the cloud and also motivated by our journey as Select Tier Services Partner at binbash helping StartUps to build, launch and scale their workloads effectively on AWS (Amazon Web Services) for years.

We're mainly sharing this list based on our experience with dozens of AWS customer projects at https://www.binbash.com.ar, specifically around binbash Leverage™ Reference Architecture for AWS.

1. Understand Your Business Requirements and Goals

Before you start designing your AWS architecture, it's important to understand your business's specific requirements and goals and how AWS can align with them. For example, your business goals may include fast time-to-market, high availability, and seamless scalability. By defining these objectives, you can choose the right AWS services and design an architecture that meets your needs.

Other important considerations that could help if you can get to know them beforehand could include understanding your traffic patterns, data storage needs, and compliance requirements. By understanding these factors, you'll be able to design an architecture that meets the needs of your business.

Figure: BUILD, MEASURE, LEARN (Source: Feedback and analysis in digital service development projects, accessed February 25th 2023)

2. Understand the Pricing and Optimize Cost Structure of AWS Services

Figure: 📚 Recommended reading (probably a must-read): How AWS pricing works: Key Principles

AWS offers a wide range of cost optimization options, and it's important to take advantage of them to keep your costs under control.

One of the most common mistakes that founders make when getting started on AWS is not understanding the pricing and cost structure of the services they are using. AWS has a wide range of services and pricing options, and it's important to understand how they work and how they will impact your costs. Make sure you understand the costs associated with each service, including any hidden costs or usage-based charges.

Figure: Amazon EC2 Purchase Options (Source: Cost optimization on AWS, AWS Initiate Public Sector Presentation, accessed February 25th 2023)

3. Evaluate the Services Available

AWS offers a wide range of services, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. As a CTO, it's important to evaluate the services available and choose the ones that are most appropriate for your specific use case. This includes fully managed services PaaS (like AWS RDS a fully managed DB engine) vs IaaS (Installing and maintaining your DB Engine inside an EC2 Instance).

Figure: What is cloud computing? (Source: Types of cloud computing, accessed April 19th 2023)

So you have plenty of different services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), AWS Lambda (Serverless Functions) and AWS EKS (Elastic Container for Kubernetes Services) among many others, w️e'll explore some of them further in the article.

4. Consider Scalability 🚀

Scalability is a critical consideration when choosing an architecture for your venture backed StartUp on AWS. It's important to design an architecture that can handle the traffic and usage that your business generates, and that can easily scale up or down as needed. The result an elastics and cost efficient cloud infrastructure. This includes using services such as Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) and Amazon Elastic Load Balancer (ALB or NLB), among many others to handle varying workloads.

Figure: AWS Managed Services responsibility matrix (Source: Choose Your Architecture on AWS, accessed April 19th 2023))

AWS fully managed services are designed to be highly available and scalable, meaning they can easily handle increases in traffic and data volume without sacrificing performance and availability.

✅ With AWS fully managed services, companies can take advantage of the ability to scale up or down as needed, without having to worry about infrastructure management.
✅ This can be especially beneficial for projects that are experiencing rapid growth, as they can quickly and easily scale their infrastructure without needing to invest in additional configurations, complexity or adjustments, leaving the heavy lifting to AWS.
✅ Freeing up valuable time and resources for StartUps to focus on building their product and developing their core business.

A clear example is clearly illustrated in the figure below 👇

Figure: AWS Managed RDS vs EC2 DB deployment (Source: How to determine the right database for you, accessed April 19th 2023)

5. Solutions Architecture | Compute + Database Services

By leveraging AWS compute managed services with containers and /or serverless computing, StartUps can benefit from increased flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, allowing them to focus on innovation and business growth. Based on our experience architecting on AWS for years, we'll recommend carefully considering the unique requirements of your application and workload to determine the best approach for your project.

🐳 Consider using containers when:

You need to break apart a monolithic application into microservices
You have a compute-intensive application
You must deploy your application in a data center and/or another cloud

⏯ Consider using serverless when:

You want to spend as little time as possible dealing with infrastructure
You want to only pay for what you're using
You can break your code into small pieces that can be run independently

Figure: AWS Managed Services responsibility matrix (Source: When do I use Containers vs Serverless, accessed April 19th 2023)

Moreover, the Cloud Solutions Architect should consider the following factors when determining the right database for their StartUp:

Identify Access: Consider how the database will be accessed, whether it will be used by a single application or multiple applications, and the expected number of concurrent users. This will help determine the appropriate type of database technology, such as relational (eg: AWS RDS) or NoSQL (eg: AWS DynamoDB), and the configuration needed for optimal performance.
Patterns Structure of data: Understand the structure of the data that will be stored and how it will be organized. This can help determine whether a relational or NoSQL database is better suited for your software and applications needs. For instance, if your data is highly structured and requires strict data integrity, a relational database may be the better choice. On the other hand, if your data is unstructured or semi-structured, a NoSQL database may provide more flexibility.
Time to Execute: Consider the expected workload and query patterns for your database. This includes the type and volume of data that will be processed, as well as the time required to execute queries. Based on this analysis, you can choose a database with the appropriate features and capabilities for your workload. For example, if you have a high volume of read-heavy traffic, a database with caching capabilities or read replicas may be necessary.

Figure: AWS Managed Database Services (Source: How to determine the right database for you, accessed April 19th 2023)

By taking these factors into account, CTOs can make informed decisions when selecting a database for their initiative, ensuring optimal performance and scalability as their business grows. As an AWS Select Tier Services APN Partner, we can provide additional guidance and support in selecting the right database solution for your StartUp's unique requirements.

6. Security & Compliance Architectural Considerations

Security is a critical concern when working with any cloud service, and AWS is no exception. As a CTO, it's important to design an architecture that prioritizes security, including setting up appropriate access controls, using multi-factor authentication, and monitoring for suspicious activity.

So at list remember too properly securing access to AWS resources avoiding the following common mistakes, while you keep iteratively rising your security based on your business needs:

🔒 Confusing the root account with IAM user's accounts
🔒 Not Setting up MFA
🔒 Using IAM Access Keys where IAM roles can be used instead

In addition to these measures, it's also important to ensure that all data is encrypted both in transit and at rest, and if possible regularly perform security audits to identify and address any potential vulnerabilities. Working with an experienced AWS security partner like binbash can be helpful in ensuring that your architecture is secure and that you're following best practices for security on the AWS platform. May be it's not going to be part of your initial priorities, but ultimately, prioritizing security in your architecture can help protect your organization's sensitive data, reputation, and bottom line.

7. Foundational Governance and Properly Configuring and Maintaining your Baseline AWS Organization, Accounts, and Network Infrastructure

As a fundamental part of your baseline AWS Architecture you'll have your organization and accounts, with their associated network infrastructure are critical components of any cloud infrastructure, and it's important to properly configure and maintain it. This includes setting up appropriate, Service Control Policies (SCP), Virtual Private Networks (VPC), Security Groups (SG), load balancers (ALB/NLB), and VPNs, as well as monitoring network performance and identifying and addressing any issues.

✅ How? Cloud Infrastructure for your StartUp with binbash Leverage™. The leading, easy-to-deploy, reusable and most automated solution for defining, provisioning and managing your secure and scalable multi-account AWS infrastructure environment.

Figure: binbash Leverage™ Reference Architecture deployment workflow (Source: , accessed February 25th 2023)), accessed April 19th 2023)

✅ Getting started with binbash Leverage Reference Architecture for AWS | https://leverage.binbash.co/try-leverage/

Figure: binbash Leverage Reference Architecture deployment workflow (Source: Leverage official Ref Arch documentation, accessed February 25th 2023)

ℹ️ Consider reading our 1st AWS StartUps related post "10 Mistakes StartUp Founders Make when Getting Started on AWS"where we extend this topic.

8. Data Strategy

For many modern StartUps you may be considering to develop a data strategy as part of your overall business approach. In today's digital age, data has become a valuable asset that can provide a competitive edge to companies that take advantage of data driven decisions. With the right data strategy, projects can unlock insights, improve decision-making, and drive innovation, ultimately leading to greater success.

One key component of a data strategy is the use of a data lake, which is a centralized repository that allows your company to store all their structured and unstructured data at any scale. A data lake can help StartUps to avoid silos of data and provide a single source of truth, making it easier to access and analyze data for insights. With a data lake, you can store data from various sources, including IoT sensors, social media, and clickstream data, and combine it with their existing data to derive valuable insights.

Figure: Data lake Multiple Data Sources (Source: Provide Business Value to the Data, accessed April 24th 2023)

However, building and maintaining a data lake can be complex and requires careful consideration. CTO’s must carefully plan their data strategy, including data governance, security, and access control policies. They must also consider the appropriate technology infrastructure for their data lake, such as AWS’s S3, Athena, and Glue, to ensure scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.

Figure: Data Lake on AWS architecture (Source: Data Lake on AWS, accessed April 25th 2023)

By leveraging a data lake and other AWS technologies, StartUps can gain valuable insights from their data, driving innovation and success.

Conclusion

Choosing the right architecture for your business on AWS is critical for its success. At binbash, we're proud to be AWS Select tier services partners with years of experience helping StartUps build, launch, and scale their workloads effectively on AWS and our recommendation is to prioritize and adapt your cloud solutions architecture based on your specific business needs aligned with the current phase of your company and objectives. It will be import to keep into consideration scalability, reliability, security, and cost-efficiency when designing your architecture.

Remember, the right architecture will help you achieve your business goals, such as increasing revenue, improving customer experience, delivering faster and reliably while achieving operational efficiency. As a CTO, it's your responsibility to make sure your company cloud infra is built on a solid architecture that can support your growth and success.

By following these recommendations and working with experienced AWS Cloud Solutions Architects and Partners, you can design and implement a solution that meets your unique needs and sets you up for long-term success.

Need help deploying your StartUp infra on AWS? Contact Us 🚀

10 Mistakes StartUp Founders Make when Getting Started on AWS

Exequiel Barrirero — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 19:12:02 +0000

Overview

As a StartUp founder, using AWS can be a game-changer for your business. This cloud computing platform offers a wide range of services that can help StartUps scale and grow quickly. However, with any new technology, there are some common mistakes that early-stage companies make when getting started on AWS. In this article, we'll discuss the top 10 mistakes that StartUp founders make when getting started on AWS, and how you can avoid them.

Today we would like to share this article inspired by our participation at the AWS Technical Founder Sprint: Best practices to take your startup from zero to one in the cloud and also motivated by our journey as Select Tier Services Partner at binbash helping StartUps to build, launch and scale their workloads effectively on AWS (Amazon Web Services) for years.

We're mainly sharing this list based on our experience with dozens of AWS customer projects at https://www.binbash.com.ar, specifically around binbash Leverage™ Reference Architecture for AWS, where we've addressed all the mistakes presented in this post.

1. Not Understanding the Pricing and Cost Structure of AWS Services

📚 Recommended reading (probably a must-read): How AWS pricing work: Key Principles

Figure: Amazon EC2 Purchase Options (Source: Cost optimization on AWS, AWS Initiate Public Sector Presentation, accessed February 25th 2023))

2. Not Taking Advantage of the Available Cost Optimization Options

AWS has a wide range of cost optimization options available, and it's important to take advantage of them to keep your costs under control. This includes accessing Reserved Instance recommendations (for RDS, ElastichCache, DyamoDB, OpenSearch and RedShift) using compute savings plans (which have been lately strongly recommended by AWS), considering using spot instances, configuring lifecycle policies where applicable, and monitoring your services usage. You could find further detail in the AWS Cost Optimization Strategies for Tough Economic Times binbash article.

Figure: Cost Optimization Levers (Source: Cost optimization on AWS, AWS Initiate Public Sector Presentation, accessed February 25th 2023)

3. Not setting up AWS budgets

One of the most common mistakes that StartUp founders make is not setting up budgets for their AWS usage. AWS provides the ability to set up budgets, which can help you control your costs and avoid unexpected charges. It's important to set up budgets for different services and monitor them regularly to ensure that you are staying within your budget. ️

Implementation examples

✅ binbash Leverage™ Ref Architercture cost management layer example | https://github.com/binbashar/le-tf-infra-aws/blob/master/management/global/cost-mgmt/main.tf
✅ binbash Leverage™ Terraform aws-cost-budget module | https://registry.terraform.io/modules/binbashar/cost-budget/aws/latest

4. Not Properly Securing Access to AWS Resources

Security is a critical concern when working with any cloud service, and AWS is no exception. It's essential to properly secure access to your AWS resources, including your EC2 instances, storage, and RDS databases. This includes setting up appropriate access controls like security groups, using multi-factor authentication, and monitoring suspicious activity.

🔒 Confusing the root account with IAM user's accounts: A common mistake that StartUp founders make is confusing the AWS root user account with IAM users. The root user account is the master admin account that has full access to all services and resources, while IAM users have access to limited and specific services and resources based on their attached IAM permissions. It's important to understand the difference between the root account and IAM users and to use them appropriately. From the official AWS Account Management Reference Guide Doc:

"The root user is the account owner and is created when the AWS account is created. Other types of users, including IAM users, and AWS IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS Single Sign-On) users are created by the root user or an administrator for the account."

Figure: AWS Account Root User (Source: W3 School, User Permission and Access documentation, accessed February 25th 2023)

🔒 Not setting up MFA: Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is an important security feature that can help protect your AWS account from unauthorized access. However, many StartUp founders forget to set up MFA, leaving their accounts more vulnerable to an attack in case their credentials are compromised. It's important to set up MFA for your root account and all IAM users to ensure that your AWS account is secure.

🔒 Using IAM Access Keys where IAM roles can be used instead: IAM roles provide the mechanism to use temporary credentials to authenticate against AWS services, which is clearly a more secure way of granting access to AWS resources than IAM access keys which are permanent and need to be rotated by the user. However, some early implementations decide to use access keys because they are more familiar with them increasing the possibilities of a security incident in case any of the user's AWS keys are compromised. It's important to understand the difference between IAM roles and access keys and to use them appropriately. Please consider reading the official AWS doc around Best practices for managing AWS access keys and this comprehensive AWS Startups Blog on How Setting Up IAM Users and IAM Roles Can Help Keep Your Startup Secure.

✅ binbash Leverage™ Ref Architecture base-identities layer with IAM Roles Eg | https://github.com/binbashar/le-tf-infra-aws/tree/master/security/global/base-identities
📚 Doc | https://leverage.binbash.com.ar/how-it-works/features/identities/identities/

5. Not Utilizing Automation and Infrastructure as Code

Automation and infrastructure as code are greatly important best practices of any cloud infrastructure, and they can help you manage your AWS resources more efficiently. By embracing this best practices you'll get huge benefits like repeatability (same code for your dev, qa and prod envs), simplified troubleshooting since everything has been declaratively defined in the code, disaster recovery support by design since IaC will enable you to deploy the same exact stack in another AWS Region, auditability and security through a single source of truth defined as versioned code in your infra repo, full visibility for your DevOps and Cloud Architecture team, through the code, portability of your solution to other AWS accounts or even to other cloud providers if needed.

This includes using tools like Terraform, AWS Lambda and AWS CloudFormation, to automate tasks, as well as using version control to manage your infrastructure. Infrastructure as code (IaC) is a method of managing and provisioning infrastructure through code, rather than manually which will be error prone and not reproducible at all. By using IaC, you can automate the provisioning and management of your AWS resources, making it easier to scale and manage your infrastructure. Many StartUp founders neglect to use IaC, which can lead to severe manual errors and significantly increased costs in the long run.

📚 Recommended reading | https://www.simplethread.com/why-infrastructure-as-code/

Figure: binbash Leverage™ Reference Architecture deployment workflow (Source: , accessed February 25th 2023)

How to deploy a 100% IaC Reference Architecture fow AWS with binbash Leverage™

6. Missing Foundational Governance and not Properly Configuring and Maintaining your Baseline AWS Organization, Accounts, and Network Infrastructure

Your AWS organization and accounts, with their associated network infrastructure are critical components of any cloud infrastructure, and it's important to properly configure and maintain it. This includes setting up appropriate, service control policies (SCP), security groups, load balancers, and VPNs, as well as monitoring network performance and identifying and addressing any issues.

✅ How? Cloud Infrastructure for your StartUp with binbash Leverage™. The leading, easy to deploy, reusable and most automated solution for defining, provisioning and managing your secure and scalable multi-account AWS infrastructure environment.
✅ Getting started with binbash Leverage Reference Architecture for AWS | https://leverage.binbash.com.ar/first-steps/introduction/

Figure: binbash Leverage Reference Architecture deployment workflow (Source: Leverage official Ref Arch documentation, accessed February 25th 2023)

7. Not Using the Appropriate AWS Services for the Specific Use Case

AWS has a wide range of services, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. It's important to understand the different services available and to choose the appropriate ones for your specific use case. For example, if you need a database, it's important to choose the right one for your specific needs, like RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, or other similar AWS DB managed services.

Rolling your own self-hosted solution instead of using a managed service: AWS provides a wide range of managed services that can save you time and resources. However, some StartUp founders prefer to roll their own solutions instead of using these managed services. If your're not experienced enough this can lead to increased costs and complexity and can be time-consuming. It's important to evaluate the managed services that AWS provides and to use them where appropriate.

8. Not using a CDN

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) can help improve the performance and availability of your applications. However, some StartUp founders neglect to use a CDN, which can lead to slow load times and poor user experience. It's important to evaluate the CDN option that AWS provides, which is CloudFront and to use its different configurations where appropriate.

Figure: AWS CloudFront Edge Locations Map (Source: SAP official blog, How to improve the performance of SAPUI5 Apps such as Fiori using Amazon CloudFront as CDN, accessed February 25th 2023)

9. Leaving unused resources running

AWS provides the ability to stop or terminate resources that are no longer needed. However, some StartUp founders forget to do this, which can lead to increased costs and inefficiency. It's important to regularly monitor your resources and inventory in order to keep running only the strictly necessary services.

Scale horizontally to increase aggregate system availability and optimize your costs: You'll automatically get the number of instances needed at each time to cover your needs reducing idle or overprovisioned resources. Check AWS Auto Scaling Groups and AWS Lambda and Application Auto Scaling for more information.

✅ EXAMPLE | binbash Leverage Ref Architecture lambda-nuke layer to clean-up unused resources with a cron based expression

✅ EXAMPLE | binbash Leverage Ref Architecture lamda-scheduler layer to stop-start resources based on a cron based expression

10. Not leveraging AWS support when running production workloads

Last but not least, another common mistake is not consider leveraging the support that AWS provides when running production workloads. AWS offers a wide range of support options (read more here), including technical support, architectural guidance, and operational support. By leveraging these support plan options, you can ensure that you could get the necessary help to validate your implementations, keep costs under control, manage risk, and get direct support from AWS specialists when running production workloads, mainly in case any issues arise to be quickly resolved.

Conclusion

At binbash, we're proud to be AWS Select tier services partners with years of experience helping StartUps build, launch, and scale their workloads effectively on AWS. Through our extensive work with numerous AWS projects, we've identified common mistakes that early-stage companies often make when getting started on AWS. These mistakes can hinder progress and lead to costly errors. However, using AWS can be a game-changer for StartUps when approached correctly. In this article, we've outlined the top 10 mistakes tech entrepreneurs make when getting started on AWS, and provided actionable advice on how to avoid them. Our recommendations cover areas such as pricing and cost structures, cost optimization options, and security best practices, including setting up MFA for your root account and all IAM users. By following these tips, we hope StartUp founders can make more informed decisions and achieve success on AWS.

Need help deploying your StartUp infra on AWS? >> Contact Us << 🚀

Becoming an AWS Community Builder 🏗️☁️

Exequiel Barrirero — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 16:40:29 +0000

Introduction

Are you an AWS enthusiast looking to take your cloud knowledge and skills to the next level?

Becoming an AWS Community Builder is an excellent opportunity to do just that. In this article, we will explore the benefits of becoming an AWS Community Builder and why you should consider this path.

My name is Exequiel Barrirero, co-founder of binbash (AWS Select Tier Services Partner), and through this exciting journey, I had the opportunity to discover and become part of the AWS Community Builders Program. And today I am thrilled I have been accepted for the 2nd year!!! This program offers a unique opportunity for technology enthusiasts and emerging thought leaders to strengthen their cloud and collaboration skills, gain access to resources and education, and network with like-minded individuals in the community.

In this article, I will be sharing my personal experience as an AWS Community Builder since 2021 and why I believe it is worth it to be a part of this program. From the exclusive talks and training sessions to the networking opportunities, resources provided and 50% discount for re:Invent 2022 ticket, the program has been an incredibly valuable asset in my personal and professional growth.

Who can and should apply?

The AWS Community Builders program is open to individuals who are passionate about AWS and want to share their knowledge and experience with others. The program is designed for those who have a deep understanding of AWS services, features, and best practices, and are willing to share their knowledge with others through speaking at events, writing articles or blog posts, or creating tutorials and sample code. Online knowledge sharing, such as posts to AWS re:Post, Stack Overflow, Reddit, Github, Medium etc., are greatly considered.

Here are some examples of the type of professionals that can and should apply to the AWS Community Builders program:

AWS certified professionals
AWS experienced Developers, Architects, Consultants and Solution providers
IT professionals who are responsible for managing and deploying AWS services
Startups and entrepreneurs who are leveraging AWS to build their business
Educators, trainers and students who are interested in teaching and learning about AWS
IT managers and leaders who are leading their organizations in the adoption of AWS

The application process is open to AWS technical builders worldwide, and all interested individuals are welcome and encouraged to apply!

Benefits of the program

✅ Strengthen your cloud and collaboration skills

First, let's talk about building your professional growth. As an AWS Community Builder, you can establish yourself as a thought leader in the AWS ecosystem by sharing your knowledge and experience with others. This can help you to stand out in the job market and open up new opportunities for your career.

✅ Networking

Networking is another key benefit of becoming an AWS Community Builder. You will have the opportunity to connect with other AWS experts and customers, which can lead to new business opportunities or job prospects.

This can help you to grow your professional network and find new ways to use your AWS skills. And consider you'll get direct contact with all members of the AWS Builders & Heroes program.

Figure: Screenshot of how you'll be listed in the AWS Community Builders Directory

✅ Learning

Learning is also a key benefit of becoming an AWS Community Builder. You will be able to learn about the latest AWS services, features, and best practices by working with other experts and customers.

This can help you to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in the AWS ecosystem, which is essential for any AWS professional.Plus access to talks and early access training on new features that AWS is about to launch in the market.

✅ Giving back

By helping others in the community, you can make a positive impact on the AWS ecosystem. Opportunity to publish on https://dev.to/aws-builders. This can be a rewarding experience that allows you to give back to the community that has helped you to develop your skills.

Figure: Screenshot of the portal

✅ Exclusive access and benefits

Exclusive access and benefits are other perks of being an AWS Community Builder. As an AWS Community Builder, you can gain access to exclusive AWS resources, such as early access to new features, training, and events. This can help you to stay ahead of the curve and take your skills to the next level. Among them:

Exclusive talks where they teach you how to generate content and share their experiences.
USD 500 of AWS credit
50% discount for AWS re:Invent ticket
1-year access to CloudAcademy
1 free certification voucher per year

Figure: Picture of the binbash team after winning the AWS Jam: DevOps and Modernization at re:Invent 2022

✅ Opportunities to speak

Lastly, speaking opportunities are another benefit of becoming an AWS Community Builder. Community builders have a chance to speak at AWS events, meetups, and webinars, which can help to establish them as an authority in their field. This can be a great way to showcase your expertise and build your personal brand.

Conclusion

In conclusion, becoming an AWS Community Builder is an excellent opportunity to grow your professional network and skills while making a positive impact on the AWS ecosystem. If you're an AWS enthusiast looking to take your knowledge and skills to the next level, consider becoming an AWS Community Builder today

In case you've missed the last January 23rd, 2023 program application opportunity don't worry, the application form typically opens more than once per year. The schedule for applications may vary and is subject to change. It's best to check the AWS website https://aws.amazon.com/developer/community/community-builders directly for the most up-to-date information on when the program forms will be open.

CONSIDERATION to get started (from the official form)

If you do not have a minimum of two community contributions in the past 12 months your application will not be accepted. Social media posts are not considered community contributions for the purpose of this application. If you do not meet these requirements, we encourage you to work on your contributions and apply to our program in a future cycle.

AWS Import/Export infrastructure as code (CloudFormation | Terraform)

Exequiel Barrirero — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 13:57:12 +0000

Based on our Infrastructure as Code (IaC) experience at Binbash (https://www.binbash.com.ar) we found several ways to translate existing manually deployed (from Web Console UI) AWS infra to Cloudformation (CF) and / or Terraform (TF) code.

AWS Cloudformation Templates

https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/

CF-#1 | AWS CloudFormation native import feature

Introduced feature (since Nov 2019) that allows to Import existing resources into a CloudFormation stack

For more info check: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-import-existing-resources-into-a-cloudformation-stack/

https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/

CF-#2 | `aws cli` & manually translate to CF

Execute $aws service_name_here describe for each element that make up your stack, eg for RDS Database Stack:

RDS Instance -> Type: AWS::RDS::DBInstance,
RDS (EC2) SG -> Type: AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup,
RDS Subnet Group -> Type: AWS::RDS::DBSubnetGroup and
RDS DB Param Group -> Type: AWS::RDS::DBParameterGroup

Afterwards manually translate to CF based on the outputs obtained from the aws cli for each of the components. This approach usually requires more experience in both AWS and CF, but the templates that you are creating can be structured and designed under best practices, fully parameterized (Sub, Ref, Join, Fn::GetAtt:, Fn::ImportValue), modular, applying conditions . As a result your 1st iteration would probably be close to the final state of the templates

Very interesting reference examples: https://github.com/widdix/aws-cf-templates/

https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/

CF-#3 | Former2

Former2 allows you to generate Infrastructure-as-Code outputs from your existing resources within your AWS account. By making the relevant calls using the AWS JavaScript SDK, Former2 will scan across your infrastructure and present you with the list of resources for you to choose which to generate outputs for.

Terraform Code / Modules

https://cloudcraft.co/ + https://modules.tf/

TF-#1 | CloudCraft + Modules.tf

Map your reality, don't waste time producing static documentation that is outdated as soon as you publish.

Cloudcraft Live instantly analyzes all the service relationships of your AWS environment, and reverse engineers a complete system architecture diagram.

Their powerful auto-layout and advanced AWS account scanning capabilities are also available to you as an API. Then via the "Terraform code export" (https://modules.tf/) will be generating infrastructure as Terraform configurations from visual diagrams created using Cloudcraft.

Cloudcraft terraform code export

TF-#2 | Brainboard.co

With https://brainboard.co you could import your cloud infrastructure
and turn AWS environments into actionable visual Terraform infrastructure-as-code IaC.

They named this feature as "Terraform Reverse" , which allows users to import an infrastructure from your cloud credentials. :ledged: NOTE: This feature is in Beta and will be released soon for everyone.

The complete doc could be found here https://docs.brainboard.co/start/import-infrastructure

Importing your infrastructure with brainboard.co from AWS

https://www.brainboard.co/ diagram + terraform code

DEV Community: Exequiel Barrirero

How a Fintech Achieved 30% AWS Cost Optimization—And Redefined Its Future

When business met growth

Co-authored by Exequiel Barrirero and Juan Matias (KungFoo) De la Camara

Back to the Future

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

A New Hope

Environment Consolidation & Scaling

Visibility

Automation & EKS Upgrades

Cost optimization

Security & Compliance

To the infinite and beyond

A Walk in the Cloud

Choose the Right Architecture for your Startup on AWS as a CTO 🏗️☁️

1. Understand Your Business Requirements and Goals

2. Understand the Pricing and Optimize Cost Structure of AWS Services

3. Evaluate the Services Available

4. Consider Scalability 🚀

5. Solutions Architecture | Compute + Database Services

6. Security & Compliance Architectural Considerations

7. Foundational Governance and Properly Configuring and Maintaining your Baseline AWS Organization, Accounts, and Network Infrastructure

8. Data Strategy

Conclusion

Need help deploying your StartUp infra on AWS? Contact Us 🚀

10 Mistakes StartUp Founders Make when Getting Started on AWS

Overview

1. Not Understanding the Pricing and Cost Structure of AWS Services

2. Not Taking Advantage of the Available Cost Optimization Options

3. Not setting up AWS budgets

4. Not Properly Securing Access to AWS Resources

5. Not Utilizing Automation and Infrastructure as Code

6. Missing Foundational Governance and not Properly Configuring and Maintaining your Baseline AWS Organization, Accounts, and Network Infrastructure

7. Not Using the Appropriate AWS Services for the Specific Use Case

8. Not using a CDN

9. Leaving unused resources running

10. Not leveraging AWS support when running production workloads

Conclusion

Becoming an AWS Community Builder 🏗️☁️

Introduction

Who can and should apply?

Benefits of the program

✅ Strengthen your cloud and collaboration skills

✅ Networking

✅ Learning

✅ Giving back

✅ Exclusive access and benefits

✅ Opportunities to speak

Conclusion

AWS Import/Export infrastructure as code (CloudFormation | Terraform)

AWS Cloudformation Templates

CF-#1 | AWS CloudFormation native import feature

CF-#2 | aws cli & manually translate to CF

CF-#3 | Former2

Terraform Code / Modules

TF-#1 | CloudCraft + Modules.tf

TF-#2 | Brainboard.co

CF-#2 | `aws cli` & manually translate to CF