Pets, not cattle
Named instances configured by hand that nobody dares rebuild, because nobody knows what is on them.
[ AWS & Cloud / AWS EC2 Management ]
EC2 that scales, patches and stays out of your way.
Instances should be boring. I take over the provisioning, scaling policies, patch cycle and sizing decisions so your fleet stops being a source of 2am surprises.
One-off cleanup or monthly retainer · Read-only review first
Autoscaling that actually triggers
GoldenAMIs, rebuilt on schedule
Patchedon a cycle, not a panic
Rightsized against real metrics
[ Symptoms ]
Fleets I get handed.
EC2 rarely fails loudly. It just quietly costs more and drifts further from what anyone documented.
Auto scaling that never scales
A scaling group with thresholds that have never once been crossed, so you pay for peak capacity permanently.
Patching by memory
OS updates happen when someone remembers, which means during an incident or never.
Old instance generations
Still on a family two generations behind, paying more for less performance.
No launch template discipline
Every instance built differently, so debugging means asking which one is the weird one.
Blind spots in metrics
No memory or disk metrics, so every sizing decision is guesswork based on CPU alone.
[ How it works ]
Review, standardize, then hold the line.
01 — Week 1
Fleet review
Every instance inventoried: purpose, size, utilization, patch level, and whether anything about it is undocumented. You get the list with recommendations.
02 — Week 2-3
Standardize
Launch templates, golden AMIs built by pipeline, scaling policies tuned against real traffic, and instance families brought up to current generation.
03 — Ongoing
Operate
Optional monthly retainer: patch cycle, capacity review, cost check and incident escalation, with a short written report each month.
[ What actually changes ]
What gets standardized.
The aim is a fleet where any instance can be destroyed and rebuilt in minutes without anyone flinching.
Build and scale
- Launch templates — one definition per role, versioned, no more hand-configured instances.
- Golden AMIs — built by pipeline on a schedule, so patches land without a rebuild scramble.
- Auto Scaling groups — policies tuned to metrics that actually move with your traffic.
- Health checks and replacement — unhealthy instances drained and replaced automatically.
- Multi-AZ distribution — capacity spread so a single zone failure is not an outage.
Operate and optimize
- Patch management — a defined cycle with a maintenance window and a rollback path.
- Full metrics — memory and disk agents installed so sizing is based on data, not CPU alone.
- Rightsizing reviews — quarterly, against 14 days of real utilization.
- Instance family upgrades — including ARM migration where your workload supports it.
- Backup and snapshot policy — retention that matches your recovery requirement, not the default.
[ Example engagement ]
Fleet of forty, rebuilt as cattle.
Hand-configured instances replaced with pipeline-built AMIs and launch templates. Patching went from an all-day manual job to an automated overnight window.
Illustrative example of a typical engagement. Figures vary with the state of your systems and are not a guarantee of a specific outcome.
40+instances standardized
1 dayto full rebuild capability
31%compute cost reduction
0config drift remaining
[ Free · read-only ]
Get a written fleet review.
I inventory every instance and send back what should be resized, upgraded, patched or deleted. No obligation to go further.
[ Pricing ]
Pricing that fits your budget.
Tell me the number you have to work with. I'll tell you honestly what's achievable within it — and if it isn't enough, I'll say so before we start rather than halfway through.
Fixed project price
Scope agreed in writing, price agreed in writing, before any work starts. No hourly creep and no invoice you haven't already approved.
Monthly retainer
For ongoing work — maintenance, monitoring, updates and small changes. Month to month, cancel whenever, no minimum term.
Hourly for small jobs
For a single bug or a short task where writing a full scope would cost more than simply doing the work.
Budget too tight for the whole thing? I'll often suggest doing the highest-value part first and the rest later, rather than doing all of it badly.
[ Questions ]
Common questions.
Do you replace our existing team?
No. I work alongside your engineers and hand over everything I build. The goal is that your team can run the fleet without me, and most do.
Can you do this without downtime?
Yes, for anything behind a load balancer or scaling group. Instances are replaced gradually with health checks in between. Single-instance workloads need a short agreed window.
Do you cover Windows instances?
Yes, including patch management and licensing considerations, though the majority of my work is Linux.
What about Spot instances?
Worth using for anything interruption-tolerant — CI runners, batch processing, stateless workers. I will set up mixed-instance policies so Spot capacity is used safely, with On-Demand fallback.
Is a retainer required?
No. Many clients take the one-off standardization project and run it themselves afterwards. The retainer exists for teams who would rather not think about it.
[ Related services ]
Related AWS work.
AWS Cost OptimizationCut your monthly bill 30-60% without re-architecting.AWS Server SetupProduction-ready VPC, compute, database and CI/CD from scratch.Server Security HardeningLock down SSH, firewall, patching and access before it costs you.DevOps ConsultingDeployment, reliability and process for teams without a DevOps hire.Docker & ContainersContainerise an existing app so environments finally match.Server MigrationMove hosts without losing data, email or search rankings.
[ Let's talk ]
Tell me what's broken.
Describe the problem in a few lines and you'll get a real reply from the person who'd do the work — same working day, no discovery call required.