January 2023 Summaries

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of how to manage Elastic IP addresses on AWS to optimize costs, focusing on identifying and releasing unattached Elastic IPs. Elastic IPs are static, public IPv4 addresses that can be allocated to an AWS account and associated with EC2 instances or Network Load Balancers for purposes such as failure masking, internet-facing load balancing, NAT gateway creation, and custom domain mapping. AWS charges for Elastic IPs based on allocation time, association status, and remapping frequency, with specific rates varying by region. The guide explains how to locate unattached Elastic IPs using the AWS Console, CLI, and Stream.Security, which offers tools for monitoring and creating custom compliance rules. It emphasizes the importance of monitoring IP usage to avoid unnecessary charges, suggests automating the release process, and introduces the BYOPIP feature as a potential cost-saving alternative. Additionally, AWS imposes a soft limit of five Elastic IP addresses per region, with the possibility of requesting more through support.

This guide provides a comprehensive look at managing Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) snapshots to optimize storage costs on AWS. EBS snapshots are incremental backups stored in Amazon S3, allowing for data restoration or volume creation but potentially leading to increased storage expenses if not managed properly. The guide emphasizes the importance of identifying and deleting or archiving old or unused snapshots, known as orphaned snapshots, which can accrue unnecessary costs. It outlines how to use tools like AWS Cost Explorer, AWS CLI, and Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) for automating snapshot management, and Stream.Security for detecting outdated snapshots via custom rules. The article highlights cost considerations, such as the impact of data transfer when copying snapshots between regions and the nuances of incremental storage costs, advising users to be cautious when deleting snapshots to avoid unintended data loss or cost implications. Moreover, it suggests tagging snapshots for easier management and cost-tracking, and recommends archiving for long-term storage of infrequently accessed data.