How a 5-Minute Chronom Scan Becomes a Year-Round FinOps Partnership
Even in today's rapidly evolving cloud environment, the fundamentals of Amazon environment administration remain crucial.
It's easy to be sidetracked by new features or assume all is well because your application is running, but this is precisely when returning to the basics becomes essential.
As teams focus on progress, AWS environments can silently accrue technical debt, miss vital patches, or neglect basic upkeep. Unexpected cost surges can occur, and simple security measures like MFA or strong password policies might not be enforced. Without a solid foundation, even the latest features and technologies are ineffective.
We view our customers' platforms as the bedrock of their businesses. By managing these fundamental "basics" to ensure everything "just works," we empower our customers to concentrate on innovation and growth.
“At SoftStackers, we believe discovery is just the beginning of a lasting partnership. By focusing on the fundamentals, leveraging Amazon tools, and maintaining operational excellence, we transform every scan into continuous improvement that evolves with our clients’ businesses.”
— Ben Rodrigue, CEO, SoftStackers
At SoftStackers, we transform foundational health checks into actionable insights and continuous operational improvements. We achieve this by leveraging Amazon's comprehensive suite of tools, including Amazon Cost Explorer, Amazon Trusted Advisor, Amazon CloudWatch, and Amazon GuardDuty.
Our expertise, combined with these powerful tools, ensures that environments are not only compliant and optimized but also strategically aligned with your business objectives.
Step 1: Chronom Discovery Scan: Instant Visibility
Every engagement starts with the Chronom Discovery Scan, a quick, agent-free assessment that delivers an immediate overview of your AWS environment. Within minutes, Chronom pinpoints:
Cost Inefficiencies: Over-provisioned EC2 instances, idle S3 buckets, and unattached EBS volumes.
Security Vulnerabilities: Unsecured IAM roles and outdated access keys.
Operational Redundancies: Redundant load balancers and untagged resources.
Chronom prioritizes each finding based on risk, cost impact, and operational urgency, providing teams with immediate insights into the strengths and weaknesses of their platform's foundation. By leveraging Amazon Cost Explorer and CloudWatch, SoftStackersAI translates these insights into precise cost optimization and operational metrics, empowering teams to act with confidence.
Step 2: Prioritized Red-Flag Report From Data to Direction
Following the initial scan, findings are consolidated into a prioritized red-flag report. Issues are categorized as follows:
Critical: Security or compliance blockers requiring immediate attention.
High: Cost inefficiencies presenting immediate savings opportunities.
Medium: Configuration improvements that enhance system reliability.
We then lead clients through this report in a live workshop to align technical priorities with business objectives. By the end of the session, both teams operate from a unified, ranked roadmap, providing a clear blueprint for the initial 30 days of managed FinOps support. Tools such as Amazon Trusted Advisor help validate recommendations against Amazon best practices, assuring clients that remediation efforts are both safe and efficient.
Step 3: Action Checklist From Insights to Execution
Once priorities are established, we move into the Action phase. Our engineers use a comprehensive checklist to verify key operational assets:
API Keys and Access Roles
S3 Lifecycle Policies
IAM Rotations
Load Balancer / HTTPS Routing
Monitoring and Backup Configurations
This checklist ensures that environments are secure, traceable, and ready for automation.
For example, Chronom recently discovered a publicly exposed RDS instance that the customer hadn’t known existed.
The database was accessible from the public internet, creating a significant risk. By promptly remediating the exposure using Amazon RDS security groups, IAM policies, and GuardDuty monitoring, we prevented a potential breach while strengthening the overall cloud security posture. This shows how even small oversights can have outsized impacts and why foundational discipline matters.
Step 4: Monthly FinOps + Support Continuous Operational Excellence
With the basics secured, clients transition to a monthly FinOps and support cadence that ensures ongoing platform health. Each month includes:
Cost & Usage Analysis: Using Amazon Cost Explorer and proprietary dashboards to spot anomalies and optimize resource usage
Security & Compliance Checks: Leveraging AWS IAM, GuardDuty, and Trusted Advisor to ensure ongoing protection
Performance Optimization: Fine-tuning load balancers, caching, and autoscaling rules with CloudWatch metrics for peak performance
Quarterly Business Reviews: Translating technical improvements into measurable business impact
By combining SoftStackers expertise with Amazon tools, clients gain continuous insight, predictable costs, and confidence that their cloud foundation is solid so they can focus on innovation, not firefighting.
The Foundations That Enable Growth
We believe that discovery is just the beginning. Well-architected platforms, operational excellence, and security best practices form the foundation that allows businesses to scale safely and innovate fearlessly. By leveraging Amazon’s native tools alongside our expertise, we help customers maintain operational health, optimize costs, and turn a well-maintained AWS environment into a strategic advantage.
Ready to See AWS in a New Light?
Your cloud environment holds untapped insights. Chronom AI and SoftStackers uncover them, turning them into a foundation for smarter spending, enhanced security, and continuous improvement.
Contact Us to begin your free discovery session and experience the power of a well-managed, fully optimized Amazon environment.
