The Challenge

A leading life sciences software provider initially relied on a combination of cloud provider-native tools and the open source Cloud Custodian project to implement cloud governance and cost optimization policies. While this approach delivered some initial success, the team faced increasing difficulties as they expanded across multiple accounts and regions. As complexity grew, maintaining visibility, enforcing policies, and automating governance became increasingly difficult – resulting in governance gaps, delayed optimizations, compliance challenges, and added operational inefficiencies. Key challenges included:

• Resource Attribution Issues: Existing governance tools made it challenging to trace resources back to specific owners, slowing down cost and compliance optimization efforts.
• Limited Policy Visibility & Tracking: It was difficult to get a clear picture of what policies were running across the environment. Managing and maintaining an inventory of active policies became increasingly complex.
• Time-Consuming Policy Deployment & Management: Authoring, updating, and deploying policies was cumbersome, often delaying the rollout of new governance programs. Formatting inconsistencies in Cloud Custodian policies led to mismatches in enforcement.
• Manual & Inefficient Cloud Inventory Management: Keeping an up-to-date inventory of cloud assets required custom scripts, which frequently failed due to cloud provider tool limitations. Generating reports for audits and executive stakeholders was time-consuming and prone to errors.
• Operational Inefficiency & Governance Gaps: The cumbersome and fragmented tooling required navigating multiple consoles and running scripts across different platforms, making it difficult to scale governance efficiently while increasing operational overhead for staff.

“Before Stacklet, deploying and managing cloud governance policies required multiple manual steps, making the process time-consuming and complex. The lack of visibility and operational inefficiencies led to delays in optimization and compliance enforcement, ultimately costing the company both time and money.”, Manager Cloud Infrastructure.

Solution

The team had Cloud Custodian OSS in place, but scaling governance across multiple accounts and regions had become increasingly complex. The team chose Stacklet because it was built by the same core team behind Cloud Custodian, ensuring a smooth transition from their existing workflows.

After a short proof-of-value (POV) engagement, the team saw firsthand how Stacklet’s out-of-the-box policies, automation, and real-time asset and inventory visibility could streamline governance and drive cost savings. With Stacklet AssetDB, they could generate detailed reports in minutes, providing immediate insights into cloud resources, compliance status, and optimization opportunities – eliminating the need for manual data gathering and reconciliation.

“Stacklet was a perfect fit for our needs, and even during the POV stage, my team and I were impressed. We immediately saw potential cost savings through out-of-the-box insights and policies while experiencing how effortless policy lifecycle management and reporting could be with Stacklet.”

Outcome

• Two-Thirds Reduction in Operational Effort and Tooling Overhead : Stacklet automates the entire Cloud Custodian policy lifecycle, including deployment, notifications, execution, and observability – greatly reducing the operational effort and tooling overhead required to manage governance at scale.
  

“Stacklet is the easy button for Cloud Custodian. The transition was smooth, and my team now spends two-thirds less time on policy management, operational tasks, and tooling. With these efficiencies, we can now focus on expanding and ensuring the success of our governance initiatives.”

• Millions in Optimization Opportunities Identified: After deploying Stacklet, the team quickly identified and verified millions of dollars in optimization opportunities and is now actively working to capture them. With Stacklet, they can easily validate and quantify savings, assign accountability, and prevent waste from recurring by engaging teams and enforcing policies.

“Stacklet’s out-of-the-box policies align with our actual usage and industry best practices. The savings identified are real, and we can easily manage exceptions while actively collaborating with our engineering teams to capture them. Stacklet is a great tool for driving engagement and governance.”

• Enhanced Visibility & 80% Less Time Spent on Governance Reporting: With Stacklet AssetDB, the team now has real-time asset inventory for resources, configurations, and costs. The SQL and Gen AI interface on top of this data allows them to get insights and generate reports in minutes, eliminating the manual effort previously required.
• Immediate Cost Savings from Cloud Provider Tool Replacement: By switching from a costly cloud-native configuration tool to Stacklet, the company is now saving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually while improving governance visibility and efficiency.

“Stacklet also allowed us to replace our default cloud configuration management tool. For our needs, Stacklet was not only more cost-effective but also significantly easier to use. We’re saving thousands of dollars from that switch alone.”

• Shifting Governance Left to Prevent Costly Issues: With more time available, the team has expanded its governance initiatives and begun implementing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) governance with Stacklet. This shift enables them to detect and remediate misconfigurations earlier in the development lifecycle, preventing costly mistakes and reducing risk.