Reducing Cloud Storage Costs by 30% with Policy-Based Backup Scheduling at a SaaS Provider

Client Overview

Global Talent Solutions (GTS) is an innovative SaaS provider specializing in comprehensive human resources and talent management platforms. Their suite of tools, used by companies ranging from mid-market to large enterprises, streamlines everything from applicant tracking and onboarding to performance management and employee development. Operating entirely in the cloud, GTS manages a vast and constantly growing repository of sensitive HR data, including applicant resumes, employee records, performance reviews, and proprietary training materials. Their business model relies heavily on data availability, integrity, and security, making robust and cost-effective data management a critical operational pillar. With thousands of clients and millions of employee records, their cloud infrastructure had grown organically over several years, leading to a complex and increasingly expensive data storage landscape.

The Challenge

As GTS scaled, their cloud storage costs began to escalate dramatically, becoming a significant line item in their operational budget. A deep dive revealed several contributing factors:

• Uncontrolled Data Sprawl: Over time, backup policies had been applied inconsistently across different data types and environments (production, staging, development, archived). This resulted in multiple, redundant copies of data being stored for longer than necessary, often in more expensive storage tiers.
• Lack of Granular Policy: Existing backup strategies were largely “one-size-fits-all,” failing to differentiate between mission-critical, frequently accessed data and older, less critical data that could be moved to colder, less expensive storage or deleted after a specific retention period.
• Manual Oversight and Human Error: The process of auditing storage, identifying stale backups, and adjusting retention policies was largely manual, time-consuming, and prone to human error. This led to overlooked savings opportunities and a reactive approach to cost management.
• Compliance Complexity: As an HR SaaS provider, GTS operates under strict data retention and compliance regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, various industry-specific mandates). Inefficient backup management not only drove up costs but also introduced potential compliance risks if data was retained for too long or not long enough in specific regions.
• Inefficient Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO): While backups existed, their organization and tiered structure weren’t optimized for rapid, cost-effective recovery, potentially impacting client SLAs in the event of a major data incident.

GTS recognized that their existing cloud storage and backup strategy was unsustainable. They needed an expert partner to implement a more intelligent, automated, and policy-driven approach to significantly reduce costs while enhancing data governance and resilience.

Our Solution

4Spot Consulting engaged with Global Talent Solutions, initiating our OpsMap™ diagnostic framework to conduct a thorough audit of their existing cloud storage infrastructure, backup policies, and data classification. Our objective was to identify inefficiencies, categorize data, and design a comprehensive policy-based backup scheduling solution tailored to their specific needs.

Our solution focused on implementing a multi-tiered, policy-driven strategy:

1. Data Classification and Categorization: We worked with GTS to classify all their data assets based on criticality, access frequency, and regulatory compliance requirements. This included separating production databases, client-facing files, analytics data, development snapshots, and long-term archives.
2. Tiered Storage Implementation: Leveraging native capabilities within their cloud provider (primarily AWS in this case, utilizing S3 Standard, S3 Intelligent-Tiering, S3 Infrequent Access, and Glacier), we designed a strategy to automatically migrate data to progressively colder, less expensive storage tiers as it aged.
3. Granular Backup Policies: Instead of monolithic backup jobs, we implemented granular policies for different data sets. For example:

• Mission-critical production databases received daily, short-term backups in S3 Standard, with weekly snapshots moved to S3 Infrequent Access.
• Client-uploaded documents were backed up hourly, with older versions tiered to Infrequent Access after 30 days and Glacier after 90 days.
• Development and staging environment backups were configured with shorter retention periods (e.g., 7 days) and immediately moved to Infrequent Access.
• Archived client data, required for compliance but rarely accessed, was immediately pushed to Glacier Deep Archive with a multi-year retention policy.

This comprehensive approach transformed GTS’s chaotic cloud storage landscape into an optimized, automated, and cost-effective system.

Implementation Steps

Our implementation journey with Global Talent Solutions followed a structured, phased approach:

1. Discovery & Audit (OpsMap™ Phase):
   • Initial workshops with GTS’s DevOps, Data, and Compliance teams to understand their current state, data architecture, existing backup processes, and compliance requirements.
   • Comprehensive analysis of cloud provider bills (AWS Cost Explorer) to pinpoint specific cost drivers related to storage and data transfer.
   • Inventory and classification of all data assets, defining their criticality, access patterns, and regulatory mandates.
   • Identification of redundant, orphaned, or unnecessarily retained data across S3 buckets, EBS volumes, and RDS instances.
2. Strategy & Design (OpsBuild™ Planning Phase):
   • Developed a detailed data lifecycle management strategy, mapping data classes to specific AWS S3 storage tiers (Standard, Intelligent-Tiering, Infrequent Access, Glacier, Deep Archive).
   • Defined granular backup and retention policies for each data type and environment, balancing cost savings with RPO/RTO objectives.
   • Designed automated scripts and configurations for implementing lifecycle rules, snapshot schedules, and cross-region replication (where applicable for disaster recovery).
   • Created a phased implementation plan to minimize disruption to GTS’s live services.
3. Pilot & Proof of Concept:
   • Selected a non-critical development environment and a specific S3 bucket for an initial pilot.
   • Configured and tested the proposed lifecycle rules and backup policies in this isolated environment.
   • Validated the data migration process between storage tiers and confirmed data integrity.
   • Demonstrated initial cost savings potential and gathered feedback for refinement.
4. Phased Rollout & Configuration:
   • Began systematic application of new policies and lifecycle rules to production data sets, starting with less critical archives and gradually moving to active data.
   • Configured AWS S3 lifecycle rules directly via the AWS Management Console and CLI/SDK for automation.
   • Implemented AWS Backup for centralized backup management of EBS volumes, RDS databases, and EC2 instances, applying defined retention policies and scheduling.
   • Utilized CloudWatch and Cost Explorer to monitor the impact of changes in real-time.
   • Developed custom scripts (Python with Boto3) for specific edge cases or complex cleanup operations not fully covered by native services.
5. Monitoring, Optimization & Training (OpsCare™ Phase):
   • Established continuous monitoring for storage utilization and costs, setting up alerts for unexpected spikes.
   • Provided comprehensive training to GTS’s internal DevOps and IT teams on managing the new policies, understanding cost reports, and making future adjustments.
   • Conducted regular reviews to identify further optimization opportunities and adapt policies to GTS’s evolving data needs.
   • Documented all policies, configurations, and procedures for future reference and onboarding.

Throughout these steps, our consultants worked hand-in-hand with the GTS team, ensuring knowledge transfer and building internal capability for sustained success.

The Results

The implementation of 4Spot Consulting’s policy-based backup scheduling and storage optimization strategy yielded substantial, quantifiable results for Global Talent Solutions:

• 32% Reduction in Cloud Storage Costs: Within six months of full implementation, GTS achieved a remarkable 32% reduction in their overall cloud storage expenditure. This translated into hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual savings, significantly impacting their bottom line.
• Reclaimed 1.5 PB of Inefficient Storage: Our initial audit and subsequent cleanup efforts identified and optimized approximately 1.5 petabytes of redundant, stale, or unnecessarily highly-tiered data. This data was either deleted according to new retention policies or moved to significantly cheaper archival storage.
• 95% Reduction in Manual Backup Management Time: The automation of lifecycle rules, snapshot management, and policy enforcement virtually eliminated the need for manual oversight, freeing up their DevOps team to focus on innovation rather than maintenance. This saved an estimated 100+ hours per month of engineering time.
• Enhanced Data Compliance & Governance: With clearly defined and automatically enforced retention policies, GTS significantly improved its compliance posture. They now had an auditable trail of data lifecycle management, reducing regulatory risk and providing greater peace of mind.
• Improved Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) by 40%: By intelligently tiering data and optimizing backup access, GTS could now restore critical data much faster. For instance, the time to restore a primary production database from a daily backup was reduced by 40% due to better organization and faster access from appropriate tiers.
• Increased Cost Visibility: The new monitoring dashboards provided GTS with unprecedented insight into their storage costs, allowing them to proactively manage spend and identify future optimization opportunities.
• Scalability for Future Growth: The robust, automated framework now in place allows GTS to scale its data operations without fear of exponential cost increases or manual management burdens. New data ingested automatically adheres to established policies.

The transformation was comprehensive, moving GTS from a reactive, cost-heavy approach to a proactive, cost-efficient, and highly resilient cloud data management strategy.

Key Takeaways

The success story of Global Talent Solutions offers crucial insights for any SaaS provider or cloud-native business grappling with escalating cloud storage costs:

1. Audit Before Automate: A thorough initial audit (like our OpsMap™) is indispensable. You cannot optimize what you don’t fully understand. Identifying all data assets, their criticality, and their true access patterns is the foundation for any effective strategy.
2. Policy-Driven is Paramount: Relying on manual processes for data retention and storage tiering is unsustainable and expensive. Implementing clear, automated, policy-based rules for data lifecycle management is the only way to achieve consistent cost savings and compliance.
3. Leverage Native Cloud Capabilities: Cloud providers offer powerful native tools for storage management (e.g., AWS S3 lifecycle rules, AWS Backup, Intelligent-Tiering). Mastering and strategically applying these features can yield significant benefits without complex third-party tools.
4. Data Classification is Not Optional: Not all data is created equal. Differentiating between hot, warm, and cold data, and aligning it with appropriate storage tiers, is fundamental to cost optimization.
5. Continuous Monitoring is Key: Cloud environments are dynamic. Regular monitoring of storage costs and utilization ensures that policies remain effective and identifies new opportunities for optimization as business needs evolve.
6. Compliance and Cost Go Hand-in-Hand: An optimized storage strategy not only saves money but also significantly enhances data governance and regulatory compliance, reducing overall business risk.

By partnering with 4Spot Consulting, Global Talent Solutions didn’t just cut costs; they built a smarter, more resilient, and more compliant data infrastructure that is ready to support their continued growth.

“Working with 4Spot Consulting was a game-changer for our cloud strategy. We knew our storage costs were out of control, but we didn’t have the internal expertise to tackle it systematically. Their methodical approach, from initial audit to automated implementation, delivered far beyond our expectations. Not only did we save a massive percentage on our monthly bills, but we now have complete confidence in our data’s integrity and compliance. It’s truly freed up our team to focus on our core product.”

— Sarah Jenkins, VP of Engineering, Global Talent Solutions

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Protecting Your Talent Pipeline: Automated CRM Backups & Flexible Recovery for HR & Recruiting