40% Lower Storage Costs. 60% Faster Recovery. 100% Compliance: How an Enterprise Transformed Cloud Storage Through Automation

Client Name : Firefly Pro

Industry : Software Company

Region: Mumbai (AP-South-1)

Duration: 1 Week

Customer Challenge

Firefly Pro, a software company, faced challenges managing persistent storage for its EC2 workloads, with EBS snapshots in the available state and no lifecycle policies, the team struggled with manual backup processes, inconsistent data protection, and rising storage costs. The lack of centralized backup management posed risks to data integrity and compliance.

Objective

The objective of this solution was to streamline Firefly Pro’s EBS storage operations by implementing automated backup and lifecycle management. The goal was to reduce manual effort, enhance data protection, optimize storage costs, and align with AWS Well-Architected Framework best practices.

Solution by Futran Solutions

To overcome these challenges, Futran Solutions assisted Firefly Pro in implementing a robust solution built around Amazon EBS and AWS Backup. The organization transitioned to gp3 volumes to achieve cost-effective performance and adopted AWS Backup to automate the creation, retention, and deletion of snapshots. This solution was architected in alignment with the AWS Well-Architected Framework, emphasizing key pillars such as security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and operational excellence.

Managed Services Provided by Futran Solutions

Monitoring & Optimization: Delivered 24/7 monitoring of EC2 and EBS workloads using Amazon CloudWatch, with proactive alerting and performance tuning.

Cost & Compliance Management: Provided FinOps support using AWS Cost Explorer and tagging strategies, ensuring cost control and governance alignment.

Patch & Maintenance Management: Regular patching of EC2 instances to maintain security and performance.

Backup Lifecycle Management: Automated snapshot retention and deletion policies to reduce manual effort and optimize storage.

Backup & Recovery Assurance: Audited backup plans and vaults to ensure RTO/RPO objectives are met.

Encryption & Key Management: Managed KMS key rotation and IAM policies to secure data and meet compliance standards.

AWS Services Involved

Amazon EBS: Used for block-level storage attached to EC2 instances, with gp3 and io2 volumes for performance and cost optimization.

Amazon EC2: Hosts the workloads that utilize EBS volumes.

AWS Backup: Automates snapshot creation, retention, and deletion for EBS volumes.

AWS Backup Vault: Stores encrypted backups and applies retention policies for compliance and recovery.

Amazon CloudWatch: Monitors EBS performance metrics and backup job status.

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM): Controls access to EBS volumes, snapshots, and AWS Backup vaults.

AWS Cost Explorer: Provides insights into storage usage and helps optimize costs.

AWS Key Management Service (KMS): Provides encryption for EBS volumes and AWS Backup vaults to ensure data security.

Architecture Diagram

Architecture Highlights

Amazon EC2 instances use gp3 and io2 EBS volumes for optimized performance.

AWS Backup manages daily backups with 30-day retention policies.

IAM policies restrict access to snapshots and backup vaults.

Backup Vault stores encrypted backups and enforced retention policies.

CloudWatch monitors volume performance and backup success.

Snapshot lifecycle policies automatically delete unused snapshots.

Tags applied to volumes and snapshots for resource tracking and cost analysis.
KMS encryption is applied to EBS volumes and AWS Backup vaults for secure data protection.

Outcomes and Benefits

40% cost reduction: Achieved by migrating to gp3 volumes and optimizing snapshot retention.

100% backup coverage: Automated AWS Backup plans eliminated manual snapshot gaps.

60% faster recovery: Consistent snapshot/restore strategy improved RTO and RPO.

70% higher efficiency: Automation eliminated manual backup tasks, freeing IT staff.

100% compliance: IAM controls and KMS encryption strengthened security and audit readiness.

Lessons Learned / Best Practices

Use gp3 volumes for cost-effective performance tuning.

Implement AWS Backup for centralized and automated backup management.

Apply snapshot lifecycle policies to control storage costs.

Monitor volume metrics with CloudWatch to right-size resources.

Use IAM policies and encryption to secure backup data.

Tag resources for better visibility and cost tracking.

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