Upwork Saves 45% on Compute Costs by Migrating to AWS Savings Plans

Upwork Global Inc. (Upwork), putting itself forward as “the world’s work marketplace,” connects highly skilled freelancers with businesses, seeking to help them build trusted, long-term relationships. For the company to do so, it requires a robust compute infrastructure that is secure, reliable, and cost efficient. Upwork meets its compute needs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. In 2019, Upwork was planning a migration of its AWS infrastructure from the AWS US West (Northern California) Region to the AWS US West (Oregon) Region. To maintain the customer experience, Upwork needed its Amazon EC2 instance clusters to run in multiple AWS Regions simultaneously. However, effectively predicting compute demands 2 years in advance was a challenge. Upwork turned to AWS for a cost-effective solution to simplify the process and enable a more effective migration strategy. The AWS account team suggested that Upwork use Savings Plans, a flexible pricing model providing lower prices compared to Amazon EC2 On-Demand Instances in exchange for a specific usage commitment. With more savings and flexibility, Upwork was well positioned to implement the needed infrastructure to mitigate migration impact and allocate additional savings toward initiatives facilitating the company’s continued growth.