Legacy Portal on AWS: Cost Estimation and Optimization¶

Scope: Implementation-specific. Applies only to the legacy Basecoat Portal deployed on AWS by the Terraform in infra/aws/. Figures are AWS list-price estimates for that deployment. It is not generic BaseCoat guidance and does not apply to the Azure Portal (portal/app/iac/) or to repositories that consume BaseCoat. See #3930.

Detailed Cost Breakdown by Component¶

1. Database Layer¶

Production (db.r6i.xlarge + read replica):

RDS Multi-AZ Primary: $1,800/month
RDS Read Replica (db.r6i.large): $900/month
Storage (200GB @ $0.23/GB): $46/month
Backup Storage (30-day retention): $100/month
Total Database: $2,846/month

Staging (db.t3.small):

RDS Primary: $150/month
Read Replica: $100/month
Storage: $15/month
Backup: $20/month
Total: $285/month

Development (db.t3.micro):

RDS Primary: $30/month
Storage: $5/month
Backup: $5/month
Total: $40/month

2. Compute Layer¶

Production:

On-Demand (3 @ t3.large): $900/month
Spot Instances (2 @ t3.large, 70% discount): $270/month
Data Transfer (Out): $500/month
ALB: $300/month
Total: $1,970/month

Staging:

On-Demand (1 @ t3.medium): $200/month
Spot (1 @ t3.medium): $30/month
Data Transfer: $50/month
ALB: $300/month
Total: $580/month

Development:

On-Demand (1 @ t3.small): $20/month
Data Transfer: $10/month
ALB: $300/month
Total: $330/month

3. Caching Layer¶

Production (cache.r6g.xlarge, 3 nodes):

Node cost: $0.658/hour × 3 × 730 = $1,443/month
Reserved Instance 1-year: $960/month (-33%)
Effective: $960/month

Staging (cache.t3.small, 2 nodes):

Cost: $0.054/hour × 2 × 730 = $79/month

Development (cache.t3.micro, 1 node):

Cost: $0.015/hour × 1 × 730 = $11/month

4. Storage Layer¶

Production:

S3 Storage: $300/month
Cross-region replication: $200/month
Total: $500/month

Staging:

S3 Storage: $50/month

Development:

S3 Storage: $5/month

5. Networking & Security¶

Production:

NAT Gateway: $45/month × 2 = $90/month
VPC Flow Logs: $20/month
WAF: $150/month
Total: $260/month

Staging:

NAT Gateway: $45/month
VPC Flow Logs: $10/month
WAF: $150/month
Total: $205/month

Development:

NAT Gateway: $45/month
Total: $45/month

6. Monitoring & Logging¶

Production:

CloudWatch (logs, metrics, dashboards): $50/month
Custom metrics: $5/month
Total: $55/month

Staging: $30/month Development: $10/month

Monthly Cost Summary¶

Environment	Database	Compute	Cache	Storage	Network	Monitoring	Total
Development	$40	$330	$11	$5	$45	$10	$441
Staging	$285	$580	$79	$50	$205	$30	$1,229
Production	$2,846	$1,970	$960	$500	$260	$55	$6,591
Total (All)	$3,171	$2,880	$1,050	$555	$510	$95	$8,261

Cost Optimization Strategies¶

1. Reserved Instances (20-50% savings)¶

# Calculate optimal mix
# Production baseline: 3 on-demand + 2 spot
# Year 1 Cost without RI: $23,640
# Year 1 Cost with 1-yr RI (3 instances): $15,700
# Savings: $7,940 (33%)

2. Spot Instances (70% discount)¶

Current configuration uses:

70% Spot instances for non-critical workloads
30% On-Demand for baseline reliability
2-3 Spot pools to tolerate interruptions
Annual Savings: ~$17,000

3. Storage Lifecycle Policies¶

# Transition to cheaper storage classes
0-30 days: STANDARD ($0.023/GB)
30-60 days: STANDARD-IA ($0.0125/GB) → -46% cost
60+ days: GLACIER ($0.004/GB) → -83% cost
180+ days: EXPIRATION → -100% cost

# For 100GB dataset:
# STANDARD (30 days): $2.30
# STANDARD-IA (30 days): $1.24
# GLACIER (120 days): $0.48
# **Monthly average**: $0.67 (vs $2.30) → 70% savings

4. Right-Sizing Recommendations¶

Current Production: db.r6i.xlarge (32 vCPU, 256GB)

If CPU utilization < 20% and memory < 30%, downgrade to db.r6i.large (8 vCPU, 64GB)
Monthly savings: $900/month

Recommendation: Monitor for 2 weeks, then rightsize if utilization permits

5. Data Transfer Optimization¶

Current: ~$500/month (mostly outbound)

Use CloudFront CDN for static content (-$200/month)
Implement VPC endpoints for S3 access (-$50/month)
Potential Savings: $250/month

Cost Monitoring & Alerts¶

AWS Budgets¶

# Create budget alert
aws budgets create-budget \
  --budget '{ 
    "BudgetName": "Basecoat-Portal-Monthly",
    "BudgetLimit": { "Amount": "7000", "Unit": "USD" },
    "TimeUnit": "MONTHLY",
    "BudgetType": "COST"
  }'

Cost Anomaly Detection¶

Enable AWS Cost Anomaly Detection:

Monitors daily costs
Alerts on 10%+ variance
Machine learning-based baseline

Monthly Review Process¶

Week 1: Generate cost report from AWS Cost Explorer
Week 2: Review by Finance & Engineering leads
Week 3: Implement optimizations
Week 4: Validate and update budget

Projected Savings (12-month horizon)¶

Strategy	Effort	Savings
Reserve 3 prod instances (1-yr)	Low	$7,940
Storage lifecycle policies	Low	$600/month × 12 = $7,200
CDN for static content	Medium	$2,400
Database right-sizing	Medium	$10,800
Compute consolidation	High	$5,000
Total Potential Savings	-	~$33,340

Current 12-month cost: $99,132 Optimized cost: $65,792 Savings: 34%