Customer Self-Service Portal

Top 5 AWS automations to enhance cloud operational efficiency



As cloud computing continues to dominate IT infrastructures, automation has emerged as a critical tool for enhancing operational efficiency, especially within platforms like AWS. By automating routine tasks and workflows, organizations can reduce the need for manual intervention, minimize human errors, and accelerate deployment cycles.

Automation also plays a vital role in resource optimization. AWS workflow automation enables dynamic resource scaling, preventing overprovisioning and waste, which translates to improved performance, increased reliability, and significant cost savings.

As cloud environments become increasingly complex, automation ensures high availability, robust security, and seamless scalability. By enabling automation to take care of these essential aspects, teams are freed up to focus on strategic, high-value initiatives that drive innovation and growth.

In this blog, we’ll explore five key AWS automation actions to significantly enhance operational efficiency in your AWS environments.

1. Start, stop, or reboot EC2 instances

What this automation does 

Automates managing Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances by handling their start, stop, and reboot actions based on triggers or schedules.

Key scenarios for EC2 automation

Here are two key use cases where automating EC2 instance management can drive efficiency and reliability in AWS environments:
  • Automated recovery: Ensures high availability by automatically restarting instances after unexpected failures. This can be set based on the availability status of the EC2 instances or on preset thresholds for metrics like memory utilization. It minimizes downtime and maintains seamless application performance for critical business operations.
  • Cost management: Automates stopping idle EC2 instances during non-peak hours, or based on metric data points like CPU usage and network utilization so that underutilized instances are identified and stopped. This reduces unnecessary resource consumption and lowers operational costs without requiring manual monitoring or intervention.

2. Start, stop, or reboot RDS instances with failover

What this automation does

Automates the starting, stopping, or rebooting of RDS instances, along with automatic failover mechanisms to ensure database availability and performance.

Key scenarios for RDS automation

Here are two key use cases where automating RDS instance management can improve operational efficiency:
  • High availability with failover: Automatically switches to a standby instance in case of a primary instance failure, ensuring continuous database availability. This is triggered by events such as connection errors, health check failures, or manual failover tests, reducing downtime and improving reliability.
  • Maintenance: Automates stopping RDS instances for routine maintenance or restarting to adjust configuration changes based on database utilization, ensuring optimal performance without manual intervention.
  • Network failures: In the event of network disruptions, automation can initiate an RDS reboot to restore full connectivity and ensure availability. This proactive measure helps minimize the impact of network failures, providing a seamless recovery process and maintaining uninterrupted database operations.

3. Invoke Lambda functions

What it does

Triggers AWS Lambda functions automatically to execute serverless tasks based on specific events, schedules, or workflows.

Key scenarios for Lambda automation

Here are two key use cases where automating Lambda functions can enhance operations:
  • Event-driven workflows: Automates tasks such as processing files uploaded to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), triggering notifications, or transforming data. These workflows execute without infrastructure management, improving efficiency and response time.
  • Task automation and scalability: Simplifies repetitive operations like running batch jobs or backend data transformations, scaling seamlessly with demand to ensure performance during peak loads.

4. Restart the web servers in a Beanstalk environment

What it does

Automates the restarting of web servers in Elastic Beanstalk to maintain performance and handle resource adjustments during updates or increased traffic.

Key scenarios for Beanstalk automation

Here are two key use cases where automating server restarts can enhance operational reliability:
  • Load management: Automatically restarts servers during scaling events to adjust resources based on traffic demand. Common triggers for this include high CPU utilization, application latency, or spikes in HTTP request counts, ensuring consistent application performance and availability during peak periods.
  • Error resolution: Restarts servers to resolve issues like memory leaks, application errors, or unresponsive processes, maintaining a healthy environment without manual intervention, especially during maintenance or troubleshooting activities.

5. Reboot Amazon ElastiCache clusters

What it does

Automates the process of rebooting ElastiCache clusters to refresh instances or apply updates without manual intervention.

Key scenarios for Amazon Elasticache automation

Here are two key use cases where automating ElastiCache cluster reboots can enhance performance:
  • Performance optimization: Reboots clusters during performance degradation to address cache inconsistencies or stale data, restoring optimal performance quickly. Common triggers include high memory utilization (for example, exceeding 85%), increased cache eviction rates, or persistently high CPU utilization, which indicate the need for a refresh to optimize operations.
  • Disaster recovery: Automates cluster reboots as part of a disaster recovery process to restore functionality after unexpected failures or disruptions. This ensures the cluster operates in a clean state and minimizes potential data corruption. Triggers for this include replication lag, node failures, or alerts for critical errors that impact cluster availability.

Leverage Site24x7 to automate AWS actions and improve efficiency

Site24x7 provides a robust IT automation framework to streamline and manage AWS automations effectively, helping organizations optimize their operations with minimal effort. With its deep integration into AWS services, Site24x7 enables automated monitoring and service action triggers based on predefined thresholds, ensuring timely responses to critical events. 

Additionally, its comprehensive insights into resource usage and performance empower businesses to scale intelligently while minimizing costs. By leveraging automation tools like Site24x7, teams can achieve seamless automation, enhanced operational efficiency, and uninterrupted service availability.
If you're not already using Site24x7, sign up today! Visit our AWS monitoring webpage or check out our documentation on AWS automations for more insights.