Tokara Solutions instantly cuts AWS costs by 10% with CloudFix

Instantly saved 10%

My favorite thing about CloudFix? It saves us money.

Shawn Grant

President, Tokara Solutions

The CRM consulting business replaced manual AWS cost optimization with automated savings from CloudFix

Tokara Solutions’ tagline is “CRM done right” – and they take it very seriously. A global team of CRM consultants and engineers, Tokara brings together people, processes, and technology to maximize business value and build trusted, long-term relationships. Its seasoned team of CRM professionals averages 15+ years of experience and is dedicated to helping clients accelerate business by putting the customer first.

Shawn Grant, President of Tokara Solutions, is an AWS superfan. He doesn’t just use AWS for his own company’s infrastructure; he encourages even his largest enterprise clients to migrate. But each month, when Tokara’s AWS bill arrived, he felt like he could be paying significantly less. Grant needed a way to reduce Tokara’s AWS spend without a lengthy consulting engagement – and with CloudFix, he found it.

“The bill was too high”: Tokara looks for an automated AWS cost optimization solution

For Grant, the challenge was simple: “I would get an AWS bill, and it would be too high.” Even as someone who was all-in on AWS, cost control had become difficult. “The AWS services are worth every penny,” Grant continued. “But if we optimized how we ran each instance, I knew we could save a lot of money.”

The Tokara team first tried to tackle AWS cost optimization manually. They attempted to read all the AWS bulletins and implement each recommended fix, but Hector Santos, Tokara’s Director of Professional Services, admits even he couldn’t keep up.

“With how quickly AWS releases updates, changes just come too quick. If you are running 50-plus servers and creating new instances left and right, your people can’t maintain it anymore. There is a better use of their time and resources.“ Santos said. It was critical for the Tokara team to focus on its mission – CRM done right – and not waste time on manual updates.

Why Tokara chose CloudFix: Easy to deploy, easy to use, instant savings

Tokara considered multiple solutions for AWS cost optimization, but landed on CloudFix. The team chose it based on two essential criteria: ease of deployment and ease of action.

“It practically sets itself up,” Santos said. “It was fast and safe to connect our AWS account and let CloudFix run. It takes all the hard work out of finding and fixing the optimizations that AWS recommends that would just be too time consuming to perform manually.” Plus, CloudFix is constantly adding new finders and fixers — keeping up with the incredible volume of technical recommendation bulletins being published by AWS.

CloudFix lets us review and implement the latest recommendations in a few clicks.

For Grant, these regular new fixers were one of the strongest selling points. “We get hit up all the time by different vendors for high-dollar AWS savings consultations or to try other tools that just recommend savings improvements, but you still have to implement them manually,” Grant shared. “CloudFix lets us review and implement the latest recommendations in a few clicks. That’s huge.”

CloudFix instantly saves Tokara 10% on its annual AWS spend

What impact did CloudFix make on Tokara’s AWS budget?

“CloudFix instantly saved us 10% of our overall AWS spend,” Grant continued. “I know Hector (Santos) feels better about showing me the bill every month.”

At Tokara, where they regularly consult on CRM projects with major enterprises, they’re already thinking beyond using CloudFix internally.

“I envision us recommending CloudFix to our own customer base,” Grant said. “Any growing enterprise will quickly get to the point where they have too many AWS instances to manage
manually. That’s when CloudFix steps up, makes ongoing management easy, and results in real cost savings.”

Grant concluded, “My favorite thing about CloudFix? It saves us money. Honestly, if you are running 10 to 15 servers in AWS, there is no reason not to be using CloudFix.”

It takes all the hard work out of finding and fixing the optimizations that AWS recommends.