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Overview
Challenge
Basic cost reporting couldn’t uncover deep architectural waste or drive the cross-team collaboration needed for true cloud efficiency.
Solution
PointFive unified reporting and optimization, surfaced deep waste, and enabled fast, workflow-integrated remediation across teams and regions.
Results
• Achieved $600K in annualized savings by identifying and eliminating deep cloud infrastructure waste.
• Reduced S3 storage costs by roughly $24K/month by archiving stale data and optimizing storage classes.Achieved $600K in annualized savings by identifying and eliminating deep cloud infrastructure waste.
• Cut about $20K/month in EBS waste by removing 150 unused or inactive virtual hard drive volumes.Achieved $600K in annualized savings by identifying and eliminating deep cloud infrastructure waste.
Client background / context
This U.S.-based global leader in audio technology has spent over 50 years redefining how the world experiences sound, from Hollywood blockbusters to today’s leading streaming platforms and consumer devices. Its breakthroughs in immersive and cinematic audio have become industry standards, trusted by creators, studios, and hardware makers alike.
Behind the scenes, the company’s AWS infrastructure supports a wide range of engineering teams and real-time applications. As their cloud footprint grew, so did the need for a smarter, unified approach to cost efficiency.
Outgrowing cost reporting
This company was no stranger to cloud cost monitoring. Their setup included a standalone cloud reporting application, which helped engineers stay on budget. For a while, that was enough. But as pressure to cut their AWS cloud infrastructure costs increased, simply “staying on budget” no longer addressed the scale of the challenge because waste is often accidentally built into the architecture and not seen as waste.
In response, the company launched a dedicated FinOps program to shift toward a more holistic approach to cloud efficiency. This approach focused on continuous efficiency, targeted waste reduction, and infrastructure optimization. To achieve deeper savings, this customer needed to move beyond surface-level metrics and identify optimization opportunities that their basic cost reporting solution could not detect due to their complexity and nuance. Their existing reporting solution was unable to support those goals.
The company’s new goals required a platform that could identify, prioritize, and act on savings opportunities across their entire environment. It had to provide both comprehensive cloud observability and practical, targeted optimization recommendations. This new tool also needed to drive action through fostering stronger collaboration between engineering and FinOps teams.
They needed a unified platform to surface hidden waste, recommend solutions, and create urgency for engineering teams to optimize infrastructure.
The shift from reporting to optimization
Integrating PointFive into their AWS cloud environment shifted the customer to a more holistic approach to cloud efficiency. PointFive consolidated reporting and optimization into one application. Its DeepWaste detection engine surfaces hidden waste that the customer’s previous cloud reporting tool was unable to detect. PointFive ties its findings to clear, actionable recommendations and delivers that context directly into engineering workflows. Its remediation guidance, and 1-Click Remediation solutions empower stakeholders to take quick action, turning insights into tangible savings. Teams not only know what to fix, but are equipped and motivated to fix it.
After adopting PointFive, the customer no longer needed to toggle between tools or dig through fragmented native services. The switch to a single, unified platform gave the team the visibility, clarity, and operational efficiency they needed to take action. Deep visibility into the system enabled the customer to scale their FinOps efforts across teams and regions with greater agility and precision.
PointFive also acts as a centralized platform for identifying and aggregating all potential cost-saving opportunities. Having all recommendations in one place supports FinOps and engineering efforts. PointFive greatly simplifies decision-making on a global scale. The abundance of useful recommendations and features, all consolidated in one place and covering the entire infrastructure, facilitates day-to-day conversations with stakeholders.
Several PointFive features proved essential, including:
Analytics Module:
Provides flexible, historical cost and usage data, along with custom visualizations for tracking trends and detecting anomalies. This capability is critical for daily FinOps operations. When deviations appear, the team informs relevant stakeholders to assess their validity and determine whether action is needed.
Opportunities Module:
Of all the modules, this one receives the most attention. It allows the team to categorize opportunities by different dimensions, such as opportunity type or account. This makes it easier for engineers to address multiple recommendations at scale, removing friction and driving action.
Cost Savings Opportunities:
This section provides detailed inputs such as the financial impact of each change and estimated ROI timelines, making the recommendations far more actionable than those from other tools the team has used. The depth of insight and clarity of presentation make it easier for stakeholders to understand trade-offs and confidently prioritize what to address first.
Remediation Guidance:
PointFive provides detailed remediation recommendations, including context on resources involved, complexity of the solution, and priority level. Remediation recommendations, including ready-to-use scripts, integrate directly into engineering workflows (Jira, ServiceNow), which further reduces friction.
By eliminating the need to toggle between tools or dig through fragmented native services, PointFive gave the team the visibility, clarity, and operational efficiency they needed to act.
“I can confidently say that PointFive supports our daily work by unifying the infrastructure, providing valuable and easily accessible analytical data to support decision-making.”
— Cloud FinOps Analyst
Results
Achieved $600K in annualized savings by identifying and eliminating deep cloud infrastructure waste.
Reduced S3 storage costs by roughly $24K/month by archiving stale data and optimizing storage classes.
Cut about $20K/month in EBS waste by removing 150 unused or inactive virtual hard drive volumes.
“It acts as a great conversation starter, offering the flexibility to tailor the level of detail based on the audience or topic.”
— Cloud FinOps Analyst
Outcomes that matter
Within six months, the company achieved $600,000 in annualized cloud cost savings, on average $50,000 per month across multiple services.
Storage savings $24K/month
PointFive revealed just how much of the customer’s S3 storage was cold, unused data. By analyzing object-level storage usage and access patterns, it uncovered misaligned storage classes and stale files ready for cleanup. The result: a shift to archival storage, intelligent tiering enabled, and a significant reduction in cluttered and incomplete objects.
EBS savings of $20K/month
PointFive analyzed attachment status and usage patterns to flag more than 150 virtual hard drive volumes that were detached, inactive, or unaccessed. This data helped the customer cut waste from their EBS environment by removing 150 unused volumes.
EC2 savings of $3K/month
Redundant virtual servers were driving up costs without delivering value. PointFive analyzed instance configurations, usage patterns, and system activity to surface underutilized or overlapping resources. The team removed those servers to reduce waste and eliminate unnecessary compute spend.
EKS savings of $2.5K/month
PointFive analyzed usage activity, resource allocation, and scaling patterns across the Kubernetes environment. It flagged unused clusters and outdated configurations that no longer aligned with demand. In response, the team deleted idle clusters and upgraded others to more efficient setups, cutting waste across their Kubernetes environments.
RDS savings of $600/month
The team relied on PointFive to streamline their virtual server footprint. By analyzing instance configurations, usage trends, and system activity, they pinpointed exactly where redundancy lived. They eliminated overlapping compute resources and cut down on unnecessary EC2 spend.
By centralizing cost observability and action into a single platform, PointFive helped the customer not just report on cloud costs, but reduce them meaningfully.
Results
This organization unlocked major efficiency gains after adopting PointFive:
Unified Cost Visibility and Action
By consolidating reporting and optimization in one platform, the team eliminated tool switching and data fragmentation. Clear, centralized visibility helped FinOps and engineering teams align on priorities, accelerating decisions and making cost-saving actions part of daily operations.
Integrated workflows ensured that insights translated into action across teams, regions, and services.
Scalable FinOps Across Services
PointFive enabled the company to scale FinOps practices with precision across EC2, S3, EBS, EKS, and RDS. Modules like Opportunities and Analytics made it easy to identify, prioritize, and act on high-impact changes, leading to faster remediation and sustained savings.
This systematic approach immediately drove $600K in annualized savings.
What’s next: Strengthening and scaling the FinOps program
The team is actively investing in the next phase of its FinOps program, focusing on long-term maturity, cross-functional collaboration, and operational precision. The following initiatives represent key priorities moving forward:
Strengthening internal practices with engineering teams
The team plans to deepen FinOps adoption by actively engaging engineering stakeholders. This includes onboarding all interested participants into both the FinOps program and the PointFive platform. To maintain alignment, they will establish a recurring cadence of sync meetings to discuss ongoing initiatives, address blockers, and explore new optimization opportunities.
Expanding reporting and accountability
The team will enhance reporting capabilities to include not only cost and usage data from cloud providers but also team-level performance within the FinOps program. They will highlight savings over defined time periods to increase visibility and reinforce ownership across the organization.
Scaling internal FinOps collaboration and efficiency
The internal FinOps practice will continue to grow. The team has already identified 23 teams as key collaborators and will focus on supporting and expanding their involvement in ongoing cost optimization work through PointFive.
Advancing anomaly detection
In Phase 5 (P5), the team will implement anomaly detection capabilities to proactively identify cost spikes and unexpected usage patterns. This will allow them to respond quickly and reduce waste before it escalates.
PointFive replaced scattered tooling with a unified platform built for action. With deep visibility, built-in guidance, and automation, the customer turned cloud efficiency into a repeatable practice that delivers real, measurable results across teams. It’s no longer just about cost savings, it’s about improving their overall efficiency.
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