Controlling Cloud Costs - Tuesday 25th April

Controlling Cloud Costs - April's event is themed around saving money by optimising the usage of AWS services.

This meetup is kindly sponsored by BJSS, who will be providing the venue, food and drink.

We have two talks lined up for you:

Cost optimisation and architecting sustainably, reducing your AWS carbon footprint
Alex McLeman, Solutions Architect at AWS

Cost optimisation and sustainability are inextricably linked. This talk will discuss cost optimisation techniques and patterns, as well as how they lead to a more sustainable technology platform. This session will provide will also discuss how Amazon Prime Video used these tools to establish baselines and drive significant efficiencies across their AWS usage.

Kubernetes FINOPS the Hard Way... ...an unfinished tale of reducing our AWS bill by 33%
Andy Burgin, Principal Platform Engineer at Sky Betting and Gaming

In 2016 the team at Sky Betting and Gaming created their container hosting platform. Based on Kubernetes in AWS and on prem environments they saw the popularity of their platform soar with many workloads deployed upon it. Skip forward to 2021 after mergers and acquisitions it was time to tackle manging the costs.

This session will explain several ways for platform teams to identify and optimise costs on Kubernetes. Covering techniques for collecting metrics about workloads, identifying the expensive ones and the challenges of working with the owners of those workloads to optimise their costs. It will also cover how to identify when you are over optimising and falling into the trap of diminishing returns.

Schedule (subject to timings)
17:45 - 18:00: Doors open - turn up, meet people, grab a drink.
18:00 - 18:30: Pizza arrives, more time for people to turn up - please arrive by 18:30 or you may not be able to get in!
18:30 onwards: Talk 1 - Cost optimisation and architecting sustainably - Alex McLeman, AWS
19:15-ish: break time - an opportunity to chat, grab a drink, etc
19:45-ish: Talk 2 - Kubernetes FINOPS the Hard Way - Andy Burgin, Sky Betting and Gaming
20:30 onwards: Continue the conversation over drinks at the Brew Society pub, which is round the corner on Aire Street

Where
BJSS, Ground Floor, 1 Whitehall Quay, Leeds LS1 4HR
A short walk from Leeds train station - head west down Aire Street, and it is on the left - you'll see the big 'bjss' sign in the window!

Food and Drink
We’ll be providing a range of drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, at the venue, from BJSS (https://www.bjss.com/), our sponsors for this event.

Food will be in the form of pizza - please let us know if you have any specific dietary requirements prior to the day and we will endeavour to meet your needs.

Code of Conduct
Like a large number of other communities, we have an anti harassment policy and code of conduct, in order to support the inclusive nature of our events. Please view here. It is necessary for all attendees, speakers, sponsors and volunteers at any AWS User Group Leeds event to agree with the code of conduct.

Helping with diversity and inclusivity
The organising team for AWS User Group Leeds are keen to promote diversity and inclusivity, in terms of speakers, how events are run, and the composition of the organising team. If you would like to contribute to this aim, particularly if you think you have experiences that you might not consider to be typical for the majority of the tech community, we would be really excited to talk with you at the event.