Using Pricing Calculator to optimize cloud migrations costs after an acquisition

Introduction

Mergers and acquisitions need careful IT migration planning. While speed and security drive initial priorities, cost optimization is essential for long-term success. This balanced approach aligns with AWS Well-Architected Framework and makes sure that business transitions are efficient and secure. This article explores how a travel services provider worked with AWS Support to successfully migrate their newly acquired European company's infrastructure from Spain to Ireland. During this migration, the team leveraged the Pricing Calculator to maintain optimal performance and make sure that applications used price- and performance-optimized architecture.

Solution overview

The acquired company's infrastructure included virtual machines, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for DB2 databases, load balancers, and object storage systems. The customer collaborated with their Technical Account Manager (TAM) and AWS Solutions Architect to model various architectural alternatives. The customer then compared costs across different service configurations and deployment options to make data-driven infrastructure decisions.

The customer considered the following key components for their solution:

• Infrastructure assessment
• Cost modeling
• Migration path definition
• Resource optimization

Solution implementation

Architecture assessment and planning

The journey began with the customer sharing their existing architecture with the AWS account team after the customer acquired a company in Spain. They wanted to migrate the acquired company's infrastructure to AWS. The TAM collaborated with an AWS Solutions Architect to design the target architecture and considered the complexity of migration:

• Virtual machines
• Amazon RDS for DB2 databases
• Load balancers
• Object storage systems

The team needed to migrate these components from OnPrem in Spain to the AWS Cloud in Ireland.

Cost projection and infrastructure evaluation

To help the customer evaluate infrastructure options, the TAM modeled various frontend, backend, and microservices architectures. The TAM then used the Pricing Calculator to forecast costs and factor in Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) benefits. With the Pricing Calculator, the team systematically compared architectural and infrastructural scenarios so that the customer could select the most cost-effective solution. The solution that the customer chose provided a 30% cost reduction compared to their existing infrastructure option. Detailed modeling provided transparent cost allocation and component-level visibility, and accelerated data-driven decision-making.

The customer organized their application into distinct usage groups by tier (front-end, middleware, backend) and environment (pre-production, production, development, QA). These groups created multiple estimates for different architectural scenarios through granular cost analysis. Two comparative examples of these scenarios are shown in Figures 1 and 2. With this multi-estimate approach, the customer could evaluate various deployment options, compare costs across different configurations, and select the most cost-effective solution that met their performance requirements. The side-by-side comparison capability supported data-driven decision-making while optimizing both operational costs and technical architecture.

Figure 1: Example architectural scenario 1

Figure 2: Example architectural scenario 2

Real-time cost management

During the migration, the organized usage groups in Pricing Calculator proved priceless. When the customer needed to modify Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance types, they could quickly update specific usage groups to visualize cost effects.

Figure 3: Pricing Calculator workflow

Pricing Calculator benefits

The Pricing Calculator provides several key benefits:

• Precise cost estimation for services such as Amazon Redshift, Amazon Athena, and AWS Glue
• Accurate storage cost calculations for Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon S3 Glacier implementations
• Comparative analysis of various machine types and configurations
• Real-time migration cost calculations
• Scenario comparison to optimize spending
• Data-driven decision-making through actual pricing metrics

Cleanup

While Pricing Calculator estimates incur no storage costs, it’s a best practice to remove unwanted or obsolete estimates. This regular cleanup simplifies focused cost planning and improves estimate management for future projects. To remove unwanted estimates, select the estimates in the Pricing Calculator, and then choose Delete, as seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Deleting estimates in Pricing Calculator

Conclusion

Through strategic use of Pricing Calculator and support from TAM, the travel services provider successfully planned and executed their post-acquisition migration. During the migration, the customer also maintained the migrated application on a cost-optimized infrastructure while maintaining functional equality with the existing architecture. To get the most out of your AWS environment, contact AWS Cloud Support Engineers and TAM. Your TAM can help you with general guidance, best practices, troubleshooting, and operational support on AWS. To learn more about our plans and offerings, see AWS Support.

About the authors

Gaurav Malhotra

Gaurav is a Senior TAM at AWS, specializing in enterprise cloud transformation and operational excellence. He partners with leading organizations to deliver strategic outcomes through cost optimization, risk management, and architectural modernization. Gaurav's technical expertise and customer-focused approach consistently drive measurable business value, helping enterprises maximize their AWS investments while accelerating innovation and maintaining operational resilience.

Tejas Majamudar

Tejas is a Senior TAM at AWS, where he partners with customers to achieve operational excellence and optimize their cloud infrastructure. As an advisor, Tejas helps organizations implement efficient risk management strategies and cost optimization initiatives. This way, organizations can maximize the value of their AWS investments.