SBI
Switch helped SBI optimize its cloud operations by aligning resource usage with real demand, enabling more efficient management of non-production environments. This approach delivered a 40% reduction in cloud costs while maintaining development performance, supporting a more sustainable and scalable cloud strategy.
SBI (Southbridge Insurance) is an innovative insurance company within the global Fairfax Financial Holdings network. They have a strong regional presence and a local office with over 25 years of experience in delivering simple, accessible, and customer-centric insurance solutions.
In 2019, Fairfax Financial referred SBI to Switch, marking the beginning of our partnership. Since then, Switch has been partnering with SBI to drive an end-to-end transformation of its technology and data capabilities. As a result, SBI achieved faster deployments, improved operational efficiency, reduced cloud costs, and established a strong foundation for more agile, data-driven growth.
While SBI's production environment used a hybrid cloud/on-premise setup, their non-production environments were already in the cloud. This meant that testing was done using cloud services, incurring costs.
With a Switch team of over 15 people working for SBI—including front-end and back-end developers, DevOps analysts, QA analysts, and UX/UI designers—these cloud-based non-production environments were consuming significant resources, and driving up costs, and impacting the project's budget.
Therefore, SBI needed to optimize the costs of its non-production cloud environment.
Through collaborative sessions, we identified key optimization opportunities and defined a strategy to reduce costs without affecting team productivity or development workflows.
We implemented an automated model that dynamically adjusts resource consumption—activating services when needed and scaling them down during idle periods. This approach was tailored to SBI’s specific environment and priorities, combining proven cloud-optimization practices with a deep understanding of its operational context.
Our primary goal was to create a cost-reduction strategy tailored to the cloud environment, allowing SBI to operate appropriately without compromising app development.
The solution not only improved cost efficiency but also introduced a more sustainable and scalable way to manage cloud resources, enabling SBI to maintain performance while gaining greater control over its cloud operations.
By aligning cloud usage with actual demand, SBI achieved a more efficient and controlled operating model for its non-production environments. This resulted in a 40% reduction in cloud costs while maintaining development performance and establishing a more sustainable approach to managing cloud resources.
This cost optimization was implemented as part of SBI's overall infrastructure migration to Google Cloud. Want to learn more about the complete migration project? See it here.
