About the Organization

Couchsurfing is the world’s premier social travel platform, with over 20 million members in nearly every country around the world.

The Vision and Challenge

Couchsurfing started on a hosted solution before migrating to the AWS cloud through a “lift-and-shift” approach to harness the benefits of a more dynamic environment. Years later, they weren’t realizing the spending optimization they expected—they had a heavy spend that prevented them from executing on new organizational investments, which resulted in a backlog of orders and overburdened DevOps team.

They were looking for a partner that could help them consolidate and optimize some of their monthly AWS cloud costs in favor of a more scalable cloud architecture. In talking with InterVision, they liked our Cloud Cost Optimization service that guaranteed them a reduction of their overall AWS costs by at least 30%. They appreciated a different set of eyes to review their AWS cloud spend. They were impressed with our approach, so they hired us for the project.

The Outcome

After engaging with InterVision’s team, Couchsurfing learned of areas to better control their resources and utilize AWS native tools. Our Cloud Cost Optimization report identified improvements at various levels that could free up a possible 33% in cost savings if implemented.

Couchsurfing reviewed our recommendations and adopted several changes involving RDS, ElastiSearch, EC2, and storage. After implementing the changes, they purchased our recommended reserved instance commitments for AWS resources, which resulted in additional savings. Specifically, Elastisearch has seen 31% in savings over on-demand resources. With ElastiCache and Redshift, they are expected to realize over 22% savings over on-demand prices. Altogether, the cloud optimization is expected to save Couchsurfing a substantial amount over the next 12 months.

As a result of the engagement, InterVision has shown the customer a level of understanding that they hadn’t yet been able to garner from AWS directly. Improvements to their cloud architecture are expected to unearth additional cost savings and to amplify their scalability even more.

“InterVision’s team aligned well with my own team to address our AWS spending needs, and we received helpful recommendations at every stage of the Cloud Cost Optimization process. The savings we’ve realized have already enabled us reallocate funds to other strategic projects. Mediating and leading a multi-vendor collaboration between InterVision and an existing trusted partner has driven impressive results.”

—Francesco DeParis, Director of Operations at Couchsurfing