Optimising AWS costs for a smarter digital school platform

About Schoolzine

Schoolzine’s platform delivers communication and content solutions to schools across Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the UK. Since 2007, their one goal has been to provide schools with an easy to use, cost-effective parent engagement platform.

To account for substantial variation in content demand over school term and holiday periods, the company developed an AWS-based platform comprising both servers and serverless processing that automatically scaled to meet user demand.

Schoolzine's challenge

Whilst Schoolzine’s platform reliably serviced users, the operating cost was increasing month-on-month at a rate far exceeding growth in users.

The solution

In collaboration with Schoolzine, we employed the AWS Well-Architected Framework to structure analysis of the platform with a focus on cost optimisation. A backlog of enhancements and cost remediations was provided and prioritised by value. We then implemented the highest-priority changes.

"Schoolzine have benefited greatly from the engagement of Rmkble in reducing AWS costs for our platform. We look forward to a continued partnership and great customer service to back up impressive DevOps knowledge!"

— Nick Aitkin, Development & Operations Manager, Schoolzine

The outcome

This resulted in savings in Schoolzine’s monthly AWS bill of up to 45% — meaning that Schoolzine’s investment in Rmkble’s consulting services was paid for in the first full month of implementation.