Achieving 50% Cost Reduction and Scalable Efficiency: FutuLearn’s AWS Optimisation Success

Published: February 2024
Client Name: FutureLearn
Industry: Online education and educational technology (EdTech) provider.

Executive Summary

FutureLearn, a leading online learning platform with over 20 million users and partnerships with more than 260 institutions, faced escalating AWS costs as it scaled. With rising expenses in key areas like pre-production, CI, and monitoring, FutureLearn required a strategic solution to optimise their cloud infrastructure and drive long-term cost efficiency.

Irysan delivered immediate cost savings while laying the groundwork for sustainable, scalable infrastructure. Our team implemented targeted solutions, including resource tagging to optimise cost attribution, the removal of redundant snapshots, and a 50% downsizing of the primary production database—achieving significant savings with no impact on performance. Additionally, we migrated EC2 clusters to Fargate, simplifying architecture and increasing operational efficiency.

To maximise savings, we recommended leveraging AWS Reserved Instances and the Enterprise Discount Program, ensuring future-proof cost management. The result was a streamlined, high-performance platform, optimised for both current needs and future growth under Global University Systems.

This project underscores Irysan’s ability to provide transformative, results-driven solutions that turn technology investments into powerful business assets, helping clients achieve operational excellence and sustainable growth.

Client Background

Launched in 2012, FutureLearn is a leading online learning platform offering high-quality courses from top universities like King’s College London and the University of Edinburgh, and global organisations. With over 20 million users, 2,000+ courses, and partnerships with 260+ institutions, it continues to grow under Global University Systems’ ownership. FutureLearn relies on AWS cloud infrastructure to power its platform.

Challenges

The main challenges for FutureLearn were the constantly increasing complexity and costs of their AWS cloud infrastructure. The problem was further exaggerated by the lack of cost visibility and reactive cost management practices. FutureLearn didn’t have a clear visibility of its AWS spend, which made it difficult to identify and address cost-saving opportunities. Furthermore, the company utilised on-demand pricing combined with absence of practice of resource cost monitoring.

Solutions

Irysan worked closely with FutureLearn to deliver immediate cost savings and establish sustainable AWS cost management practices.

We identified escalating costs in pre-production, CI, and monitoring environments due to ongoing development. To address this, we introduced resource tagging for precise cost attribution per project, enabling better financial oversight.

Our analysis revealed a large volume of outdated snapshots, which were swiftly deleted, alongside an inefficient practice of retaining excessive daily database snapshots without purpose. We recommended reducing snapshot frequency and retention periods, cutting unnecessary costs.

Crucially, we discovered the primary production database was over-provisioned. By downsizing it by 50%, we achieved significant savings of 32% with zero impact on performance.

To enhance efficiency and simplify architecture, we proposed migrating EC2 clusters to Fargate, enabling streamlined operations and a more granular backup strategy.

Finally, we recommended securing cost savings through reserved AWS capacity and maximising benefits from the AWS Enterprise Discount Program.

The outcomes achieved

The efficiency-focused interventions collectively contributed to a substantial reduction in the cost and complexity of FutureLearn’s AWS infrastructure, reaching system optimisations of up to 50%, cost efficiencies of 32% and future cost savings associated with reserved pricing, which could now be applied to a lean infrastructure architecture.

The simpler AWS infrastructure landscape is now more maintainable and requires lower maintenance overheads. Importantly, with the new practices of resource tagging and transparent spend with Application Manager in place, FutureLearn team is now well-equipped to monitor and address future increases in complexity and cost.  

Results and Benefits

When working on this project, the chosen approach of “going back to basics” and employing discipline in understanding the client’s AWS resource allocation patterns and consumption needs served our client very well.

Tagging resources used by software developers brought clarity and transparency of development costs in AWS. Snapshot monitoring and removal of a large volume of old snapshots further contributed to cost reduction and an overall leaner infrastructure. Reduction of the size of the production database had a similar positive impact. 

One important result of this project was that development and the SRE teams felt more in control of their resource utilisation and real resource needs. 

Conclusion

Irysan’s collaboration with FutureLearn delivered significant cost savings, improved operational efficiency, and established a robust framework for ongoing AWS cost management. By implementing resource tagging, eliminating unnecessary storage, right-sizing infrastructure, and transitioning to Fargate, we not only reduced costs but also strengthened FutureLearn’s ability to scale and innovate.

These targeted improvements, paired with strategic recommendations for future savings, have positioned FutureLearn for sustainable growth as it expands under Global University Systems. This case study showcases Irysan’s dedication to delivering pragmatic, high-impact solutions that drive real business value and empower our clients to achieve more with their technology investments.