Does this AWS cost optimization approach work outside publishing?

Absolutely. The same steps apply to retail, SaaS, e-commerce, and media workloads that need predictable operating costs and high availability. We've successfully implemented this for clients across Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, and throughout Malaysia.

How We Helped a Malaysian Enterprise Cut AWS Cloud Costs by 20% with Smart Savings Plans | Selangor & KL

Q: What about compliance for regulated sectors in Malaysia?

We keep ACM renewals automated, use DNS validation for clean audit trails, and align tagging plus budgets with finance controls for regulated teams. This approach meets most Malaysian compliance requirements including PDPA.

AWS cloud cost optimization dashboard showing 20% savings for Malaysian enterprise with Savings Plans and Graviton migration

Reading Time: 9 minutes Audience: CIOs, IT Managers, Finance Controllers in Malaysia Tags: AWS Cost Optimisation, FinOps, Savings Plans, Managed Certificates, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur

The Challenge (Malaysia)

A leading Malaysian education publisher based in Selangor (kept anonymous for confidentiality) was facing two critical issues:

Runaway EC2 and RDS costs after rapid content growth across their digital platform serving students throughout Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, and nationwide.
Expensive annual SSL renewals from a legacy certificate vendor that risked renewal downtime and compliance issues.

They needed measurable savings without risking uptime for their nationwide reader base, particularly during peak exam periods.

Quick Snapshot of the Win

20% reduction in monthly AWS bill within two billing cycles (approximately RM12,000/month savings).
RM8,000 yearly savings by eliminating paid SSL certificates and switching to AWS Certificate Manager.
Zero downtime during ACM cutover for CloudFront and Application Load Balancer.
15% performance uplift in API response times thanks to Graviton processors and Availability Zone colocation.
Improved search visibility due to better uptime (99.99%) and faster page load speeds.

Approach at a Glance

Our cloud architecture team in Shah Alam, Selangor implemented a systematic 6-phase approach:

30-day cost baseline with AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Compute Optimizer, and comprehensive tagging hygiene.
Compute efficiency: right-size instances and migrate to AWS Graviton processors where supported.
Savings Plans strategy targeting steady 24x7 workloads with 1-year commitment at 70% coverage.
Networking and storage optimization to reduce cross-AZ data transfer and implement intelligent storage tiering.
Certificate modernization: migrate to AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) and eliminate third-party renewal fees.
Zero-downtime cutover with staged deployments, parallel listeners, and comprehensive health checks.

What We Did (Step by Step)

1) Baseline and Quick Wins

Normalized tags for environments (dev, staging, production) and products to identify underutilized resources.
Identified 15% oversized EC2 instances using CloudWatch metrics and AWS Compute Optimizer recommendations.
Enabled S3 Intelligent-Tiering for infrequently accessed digital assets (PDFs, archived content).
Discovered RM2,400/month in idle resources (unattached EBS volumes, unused Elastic IPs).

2) Graviton Migration and Right-Sizing

Migrated API servers from m5.xlarge to m7g.xlarge (Graviton3) instances for 15-18% lower hourly rates.
Transitioned RDS instances to burstable db.t4g classes during off-peak hours while maintaining read replicas.
Configured autoscaling cooldown periods to prevent unnecessary scale-out spikes during scheduled content synchronization.
Achieved 99.99% uptime throughout the migration process.

3) Savings Plans & Commitment Design

Modelled 12-month Compute Savings Plans to cover baseline utilisation at 70% of average load.
Reserved only predictable workloads (content rendering, nightly ETL) and kept burst capacity on-demand.
Reviewed utilisation weekly in month one to avoid over-commitment.

4) Networking and Storage Optimisation

Co-located services within the same Availability Zone for chatty workloads to reduce inter-AZ traffic.
Implemented S3 lifecycle rules to archive stale PDFs to Glacier Instant Retrieval.
Cached popular assets with CloudFront to shrink origin data transfer.

5) Certificate Modernisation with Zero Downtime

Replaced a costly annual SSL provider with AWS Certificate Manager across CloudFront and ALB.
Used staged deployments: attached ACM certs to parallel listeners, validated via Route 53 DNS, then cut traffic over after health checks.
Outcome: no downtime during switch-over and RM8k annual savings on certificates alone.

6) Governance and FinOps Rhythm

Created a monthly cost review ritual with finance and engineering, using budgets and alerts.
Added automated idle resource sweeps for unattached EBS volumes and stale Elastic IPs.
Documented playbooks so the client team can repeat optimisations every quarter.

Results You Can Replicate

20% total AWS bill reduction within two billing cycles (compute + networking + storage + certificates).
Performance uplift: lower p95 latency after Graviton adoption and AZ co-location.
Operational simplicity: ACM removed manual renewal risk and reduced vendor management overhead.
Search visibility: stronger uptime helped the publisher protect organic traffic during promotional periods.

How This Helps Malaysian Organisations in Selangor & Kuala Lumpur

Budget predictability: Savings Plans and lifecycle policies smooth out monthly operating expenses for businesses in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, and throughout Malaysia.
Compliance-friendly: DNS validation and managed certificate renewals align with Malaysian audit requirements including PDPA compliance.
Scalable playbook: Works for publishers, e-commerce platforms, SaaS providers, and media companies running multi-AZ workloads across AWS Asia Pacific regions.
Local expertise: Our AWS-certified team in Shah Alam provides hands-on support for Malaysian enterprises.

Your Next Steps

Audit EC2, RDS, and CloudFront spend for Graviton and caching opportunities.
Map steady-state workloads to 1-year or 3-year Savings Plans; avoid overcommitting spiky jobs.
Replace third-party certificates with ACM and stage the cutover to avoid outages.

Need a partner to run the playbook? Our cloud architecture team can design and implement the same zero-downtime transition tailored to your workloads.

FAQs: AWS Cost Optimisation in Malaysia

How fast can we see AWS savings?

Most Malaysian clients see first-month reductions by right-sizing, enabling S3 Intelligent-Tiering, and switching to Savings Plans for baseline workloads.

Do Savings Plans lock us in?

Compute Savings Plans provide flexibility across instance families and regions while still lowering costs. We model 1-year terms at 70% coverage to balance savings and agility.

What about compliance for regulated sectors?

We keep ACM renewals automated, use DNS validation for clean audit trails, and align tagging plus budgets with finance controls for regulated teams.

Can we avoid downtime when replacing SSL certificates?

Yes. We stage ACM certificates on parallel listeners, run health checks, then switch traffic—matching the zero-downtime approach in this case study.

Does this approach work outside publishing?

Absolutely. The same steps apply to retail, SaaS, e-commerce, and media workloads that need predictable operating costs and high availability.

Request an AWS Cost Optimisation Assessment

See how much you can save with Savings Plans, Graviton, and managed certificates—delivered with zero downtime.

How We Helped a Malaysian Enterprise Cut AWS Cloud Costs by 20% with Smart Savings Plans