Cloud Infrastructure Audit &
Migration Strategy
Helping a mid-sized Swedish publishing house evaluate their AWS infrastructure, reduce costs, regain control over their cloud setup, and address data sovereignty and compliance concerns.
The Background
A mid-sized Swedish publishing house with a small development team was facing a six-figure monthly AWS bill. But cost was only part of the problem. The team had limited visibility into how their infrastructure actually worked, and relying entirely on a US-based cloud provider raised concerns around data sovereignty and compliance. I stepped in to audit the full stack, identify waste, and map out realistic alternatives that would give the company back control over their infrastructure.
"This wasn't just about cutting costs. It was about understanding the infrastructure, owning the decisions, and making sure the setup meets Swedish compliance requirements — not just trusting a US provider to handle it."
The Approach
The work followed a structured consulting approach across multiple sessions:
Phase 1: Cost Analysis & Inventory
Built an automated AWS inventory script to pull every running service, instance size, and configuration. Mapped the full cost breakdown: RDS (35%), ECS (16%), ElastiCache (10%), CloudFront (7%), and identified that NAT Gateway costs alone were a known waste area.
Phase 2: Infrastructure Mapping
Created a structured checklist to verify compute resources, database sizing, Redis usage patterns, storage categories, and networking requirements. This produced a standardized inventory suitable for getting quotes from alternative providers.
Phase 3: Strategic Recommendations
Evaluated three paths: optimize on AWS (20–30% savings), migrate to a Swedish managed provider (40–50% savings), or full self-hosting at a Swedish datacenter (60–70% savings). Each option came with honest trade-offs around risk, team skill requirements, and operational burden.
Phase 4: Migration Planning (Proposed)
Proposed a migration roadmap with service-by-service equivalents: Kubernetes for ECS, self-hosted PostgreSQL for RDS, MinIO for S3, Cloudflare for CloudFront, and Grafana + Prometheus replacing CloudWatch. The plan is currently with the company for review and decision.
Key Findings
of total spend on RDS alone
Databases were the single largest cost driver and likely over-provisioned. A managed PostgreSQL at a Swedish provider would cost a fraction.
potential monthly cost reduction
By migrating to a Swedish managed provider — the recommended option balancing savings with operational simplicity.
of spend on managed Redis
ElastiCache was one of the easiest quick wins — self-hosted Redis is trivial to run and nearly free.
Architecture Mapping
Current AWS Stack
ECS (containers) • RDS (databases) • ElastiCache (Redis)
CloudFront (CDN) • S3 (storage) • ELB (load balancing)
CloudWatch (monitoring) • NAT Gateway • Backup
↓ Proposed Migration Targets
Kubernetes / Docker Compose • PostgreSQL (dedicated) • Redis (self-hosted)
Cloudflare (CDN) • MinIO / Cloudflare R2 • Nginx / HAProxy
Grafana + Prometheus • Restic / Borg (backups)
Tech Stack & Tools
Project Details
Type
Consulting / Cloud Infrastructure
Status
Ongoing
Client
Swedish Publishing House
Scope
Cost Audit, Infrastructure Mapping, Migration Strategy, Compliance
Monthly AWS Spend
Six-figure SEK
Projected Savings
Up to 50%