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AWS Case Study: GirlCode — AWS Well-Architected Framework Review (WAFR)

About the Customer

GirlCode is a registered NPO empowering young girls and women through technology. As an organization, they are committed to advancing the principles of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) and are proud to be recognized as a level 1 BBBEE contributor.

The powerful women-owned business is on a mission to empower 10 million women and girls by 2030, by creating a network of women who are highly skilled in software development and leadership skills and who will contribute towards an inclusive and innovative technology industry.

The Challenge

Following their migration to AWS, GirlCode needed an AWS Well-Architected Partner to conduct an AWS Well-Architected Framework Review (WAFR) on their cloud-hosted environments, focusing on reducing operational costs.

The Well-Architected Framework provides architectural best practices for designing and operating secure, reliable, efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable workloads in the AWS Cloud.

It provides a way for organizations to consistently measure their architecture against six pillars, namely, Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability, to identify areas for improvement.

The Solution

Recognizing the need to address these challenges, GirlCode engaged Silicon Overdrive to undergo an AWS Well-Architected Framework Review. The Review aimed to identify areas of improvement around cost savings within their existing cloud architecture.

Within the broader review, Silicon Overdrive’s team also conducted a detailed cost optimization assessment. This assessment delved into the organization’s AWS resource utilization, spending patterns, and opportunities for cost savings.

Silicon Overdrive identified over-provisioned instances, which were subsequently right-sized of AWS services utilized according to actual usage patterns based on metrics. This optimization strategy resulted in resource allocation that was more closely aligned with workload requirements.

Silicon Overdrive also identified and categorized the baseline workloads and implemented AWS Savings Plans and Reserved Instances (RIs) to achieve significantly discounted pricing.

The Review also encouraged the implementation of tagging and cost attribution practices, which led to providing granular insights into GirlCode’s AWS resource usage and spending.

Tagging involves adding metadata, or “tags,” to resources such as EC2 instances, RDS (Relational Database Service) databases, S3 buckets, and more. Tags provided additional context about each resource, including ownership, purpose, and environment. Tags emerged as a powerful tool for categorizing and organizing resources effectively.

Throughout the process, various other operational improvements were identified and implemented, including setting up CloudWatch alerts, automating responses to events, rotating access keys, and periodically reviewing IAM (Identity Access Management) user access, among other actions.

The Outcome

The AWS Well-Architected Framework Review, with a focus on cost optimization, empowered GirlCode to make data-driven decisions, streamline AWS resource allocation, and optimize costs without compromising on performance.

As GirlCode continues its mission to empower young girls and women through technology, it does so with the knowledge that its cloud infrastructure is as efficient as its cause is impactful.

Zandile Mkwanazi, Founder and CEO of GirlCode, said: “The team was fantastic, they offered a great level of support and communication throughout the project implementation. I believe they went above and beyond to facilitate the successful implementation of the project.”

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