HealthTech Solutions Reduces AWS Infrastructure Costs Using CloudCheckr

Overview

The healthcare industry has become more complex in recent years. As many organizations chase moving targets for data privacy and security best practices, they are also shifting to the cloud. HealthTech Solutions addresses these challenges by providing cloud-based solutions to clinics, hospitals, and federal contracts of all sizes.

For HealthTech Solutions, the cloud is essential for monitoring and rightsizing the various IT environments the business helps manage. Taking a cloud-first initiative has enabled HealthTech Solutions to outcompete its rivals by offering lower costs and more flexibility. Looking to keep its competitive edge sharp, HealthTech Solutions turned to CloudCheckr to more effectively manage its cloud-based offerings across multiple client accounts, increase profit margins, and tighten cloud security.

Challenge

HealthTech Solutions began using AWS services, but in the heavily regulated healthcare space, the company was restricted in which offerings they could use. Those restrictions made it necessary to spend more on traditional IT architecture. Each client required separate servers to maintain data integrity.

Carla Raisler is the Information Security and Privacy Officer at HealthTech Solutions. Among other things, her challenge is to help manage infrastructure resources and costs effectively across multiple clients, and to improve bidding on projects based on accurate historical information. She keeps a close watch on everything going on in the infrastructure at HealthTech Solutions, including costs and utilization.

“I wanted to be as accurate as possible when it came to pricing out the infrastructure for new bids,” says Raisler. “I needed to be able to make projections from historical data and run different scenarios based on what the bid was asking for.”

As HealthTech Solutions made the transition to the AWS cloud, Raisler found herself spending hours figuring out how much each client’s AWS usage was costing. Even using tags, the cloud usage across client environments was difficult to assess, as she spent time aggregating and dissecting information logs in AWS.

HealthTech Solutions continued to grow, until suddenly the company experienced a significant increase in AWS bills. As the expenses rapidly grew, Raisler knew she would need a cloud management platform to gain the visibility and control she needed.

“There was an incredible increase,” Raisler says, “and I said, ‘I can fix it now if I buy CloudCheckr.’ And in the first 90 days of using CloudCheckr, I reduced spending by 25 percent.”

Solution

HealthTech Solutions researched several cloud management solutions before deciding on CloudCheckr. As the company reviewed them, they found the other options were needlessly complex and difficult to implement.

“CloudCheckr is so much easier, intuitive, and rich with information than the other options,” says Raisler. “When I started with CloudCheckr, I had it up and running within an hour. At first I was worried that it was too easy, but after a year I haven’t had any problems.”

With CloudCheckr in place, Raisler demonstrated ROI to the HealthTech Solutions team by bringing down infrastructure costs in the first thirty days. Now she receives critical information about the company’s AWS environment directly when she logs in.

Once Raisler’s colleagues found out she had access to reports about each client’s environment and cost allocations, they began learning how to run their own reports independently.

When HealthTech Solutions wins new client accounts, they’re connected to CloudCheckr instantly.

“I love that it integrates so seamlessly. Within a few clicks I have new accounts connected to CloudCheckr,” Raisler says. “It’s a testament to the quality of the product.”

Raisler’s job is simplified, too. “It’s so easy to get the information I need aggregated and displayed, so I can quickly make decisions that save time and money. AWS has so much information going back and forth, and CloudCheckr helps immensely.”

Reducing costs, however, is only part of the picture. As HealthTech Solutions continues advancing in the cloud, Raisler recognizes the ongoing importance of cloud security. “Those advanced, persistent cybersecurity threats become more of a reality. It takes a lot of information to build the whole picture,” she says. “With CloudCheckr, I can see that security information aggregated and reported to me. It makes things so much easier.”

Overall, Raisler considers CloudCheckr’s customer service and technical service to be the best features. “The product quality and people have made the biggest impact,” she says. “CloudCheckr is the only product I’ve ever implemented where no issues developed. I got started on my own, and then my rep at CloudCheckr set up a weekly meeting so I could learn new reports, simpler access to tools, and better ways to do things… CloudCheckr is great at helping me figure out what I want and how to make it happen. They work to make the product meet customer needs.”

Results

HealthTech Solutions now uses CloudCheckr’s Reserved Instance recommendations and other tools to monitor costs, right size instances, and monitor security. Raisler has been able to stabilize cloud costs even as HealthTech Solutions keeps growing. Using CloudCheckr, she has helped HealthTech Solutions refine its billing processes and control costs.

CloudCheckr has become the go-to resource for Raisler’s team. “CloudCheckr is intuitive enough for non-technical people,” she says. “It saves a tremendous amount of time – employees are saving at least eight to ten hours a month with this information, since it’s so quick to get in and see reports.”

HealthTech Solutions also has seen the results of CloudCheckr’s security and privacy tools. 

“Our organization is safer from security vulnerabilities, threats, and risks,” says Raisler. “CloudCheckr brings the most important information forward and displays what I need to know first. I prioritize what to fix, what to check, and then I have custom alarms set that help me sleep easier at night knowing the cloud environment is secure.”

In the highly regulated healthcare space, this is especially important.

“It’s nice to see the security framework I used for FedRAMP requirements for my clients is built into CloudCheckr. It validates my security framework and makes it much faster to prove to clients that we’re meeting all security requirements.”