Case Study: Multi-Cloud Telco Provider

Company Overview

Our client is a leading telecommunications provider undergoing digital transformation. They were building a next-generation multi-cloud platform to deliver advanced network services to enterprise customers. With development teams distributed across three continents, they needed robust dev/qa environments to support rapid iteration and testing.

AWS
Primary Cloud

Azure
Secondary

GCP
Edge Services

Company Profile

Industry: Telecommunications
Company Size: 5,000+ employees
Engineering Team: 100+ developers
Multi-cloud strategy: AWS, Azure, GCP
Global presence: 15+ countries

Project Details

Project: Next-gen multi-cloud platform
AWS regions in use: 12 globally
Dev/QA monthly spend: $300,000
Active resources: 800+ instances
Development teams: 25 agile teams

The Challenge

Building a complex multi-cloud platform required extensive testing infrastructure across multiple AWS regions. The company faced significant challenges managing cloud costs while maintaining development velocity and testing rigor.

Cost Distribution Before CalCloudSpendIQ

$300K

Monthly

Idle EC2 Instances
30% - $90K/month

Oversized Resources
20% - $60K/month

Orphaned Storage
20% - $60K/month

Active Testing
10% - $30K/month

Necessary Resources
20% - $60K/month

Key Challenges

25 teams with no cost visibility
Test environments left running overnight
Cross-region resource duplication
No automated shutdown policies
Over-provisioned for peak loads
Lack of resource tagging standards

Business Impact

$300K monthly AWS spend for dev/qa
80% of resources idle during off-hours
Budget constraints limiting innovation
No cost attribution to teams
CFO demanding 25% cost reduction
Delayed product launch due to budget

"We were spending $300,000 monthly on dev/qa environments, but we had zero visibility into which teams were using what resources. Our CFO gave us a mandate to cut costs by 25%, but we didn't even know where to start."

— Head of Cloud Infrastructure

The Solution

The company deployed CalCloudSpendIQ across all 12 AWS regions used for development and testing. The implementation was completed in 3 days with comprehensive training for all 25 development teams.

CalCloudSpendIQ Multi-Region Deployment

CalCloudSpendIQ Central

↓

Americas
(4 regions)

EMEA
(5 regions)

APAC
(3 regions)

↓

Daily Reports

Smart Alerts

Team Dashboards

Implementation Approach

Deployed CalCloudSpendIQ in all 12 regions
Established resource tagging standards
Created team-specific cost reports
Set up automated alert thresholds
Integrated with Slack and email
Trained all 25 development teams

Optimization Strategies

Auto-shutdown for non-business hours
Right-sizing based on actual usage
Consolidation of duplicate resources
Removal of orphaned EBS volumes
Reserved Instances for stable workloads
Cost allocation and chargebacks

Week 1

Deployment & Discovery

Deployed CalCloudSpendIQ, established baseline, identified quick wins

Month 1

Quick Wins Implementation

Removed idle resources, implemented auto-shutdown. Savings: 10%

Month 2-3

Right-Sizing & Optimization

Resource right-sizing, team training, policy enforcement. Savings: 20%

Month 4-6

Advanced Optimization

Reserved Instances, consolidated resources. Savings: 30%

Month 12

Sustained Performance

Mature optimization practices, continuous monitoring. Savings: 30%+

Results & ROI

Monthly Cost Reduction Over 12 Months

$300K

Before

$270K

Month 1

$240K

Month 3

$210K

Month 12

Cost Distribution After CalCloudSpendIQ

$210K

Monthly

Optimized Active Resources
70% - $147K/month
(Well-utilized, right-sized)

Necessary Overhead
30% - $63K/month
(Build servers, monitoring)

$90K Monthly Savings (30% Reduction)

12-Month ROI Summary

30%

Cost Reduction

$90K

Monthly Savings

$1.08M

Annual Savings

540x

Return on Investment

Total Investment: ~$2,000 (CalCloudSpendIQ setup + AWS costs)
Payback Period: Less than 1 day
ROI Achievement: Exceeded 25% target mandate by 5%

Quantifiable Results

30% reduction in dev/qa AWS costs
$1.08M saved in the first year
240+ idle EC2 instances terminated
120+ unattached EBS volumes removed
50+ unused Elastic IPs released
100+ resources right-sized

Operational Benefits

100% cost visibility per team
Team accountability established
90% reduction in manual reporting
Automated cost governance
CFO mandate exceeded by 5%
Freed budget for product innovation

"CalCloudSpendIQ not only helped us meet our CFO's 25% cost reduction mandate—we exceeded it by achieving 30% savings. The daily reports have transformed our culture. Teams now compete to see who can optimize their costs the most. It's been a game-changer for our organization."

— VP of Engineering

Multi-Cloud Telco Provider Case Study