aws·May 12, 2026·2 min readCurated summary

Amazon Redshift introduces AWS Graviton-based RG instances with an integrated data lake query engine | Amazon Web Services

Amazon Redshift introduces RG instances powered by AWS Graviton, targeting lower-cost, higher-volume analytics for both human users and AI agents. RG instances can run warehouse workloads up to 2.2× faster than RA3 at 30% lower price per vCPU, while an integrated data lake engine enables faster SQL queries across warehouse tables and S3 data. The architecture also removes the need for Redshift Spectrum and its per-terabyte scanning fees. ## Performance and Cost Improvements - RG instances deliver: - Up to 2.2× faster data warehouse workloads than RA3. - 30% lower pricing per vCPU. - Up to 2.4× faster queries on Apache Iceberg data. - Up to 1.5× faster queries on Apache Parquet data. - The improvements are designed for: - Low-latency BI dashboards. - ETL pipelines and near-real-time analytics. - High-volume queries generated by autonomous AI agents. - AWS recommends using the AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate savings for specific workloads. ## Integrated Data Lake Query Engine - RG instances query warehouse tables and S3 data lakes through one engine. - Data lake queries run directly on Redshift cluster nodes rather than through Redshift Spectrum. - Existing external tables, schemas, Spectrum queries, and SQL syntax remain unchanged. - Customers do not need to recreate external tables or modify application code. - Queries remain inside the customer’s VPC, use existing IAM roles, and avoid Spectrum’s former $5-per-terabyte scanning charge. ## Migration and Setup - RG clusters can be created or migrated through: - The AWS Management Console. - AWS CLI. - AWS API. - The integrated data lake engine is enabled by default. - Migration options include: - **Elastic Resize:** In-place migration with approximately 10–15 minutes of downtime for compatible configurations. - **Snapshot and Restore:** Creates an RG cluster from an RA3 snapshot and is useful when configuration changes are needed. ## Availability and Pricing Options - RG instances are available across numerous AWS Regions in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Canada, and South America. - Redshift Provisioned customers can choose: - On-Demand Instances with hourly billing and no commitment. - Reserved Instances for additional savings. RG instances are intended for organizations combining data warehouse and data lake workloads, especially those needing lower costs and fast response times at high query volumes. Customers should test compatibility and use workload-specific pricing estimates before migrating.

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coupang·Nov 15, 2024Original article

Optimizing Operating Costs through Cloud Service (opens in new tab)

Coupang’s Finance and Engineering teams collaborated to optimize cloud expenditures by focusing on resource efficiency and the company's "Hate Waste" leadership principle. Through a dedicated optimization project team and the implementation of data-driven analytics, the company successfully reduced on-demand costs by millions of dollars without compromising business growth. This initiative transformed cloud management from a reactive expense into a proactive engineering culture centered on financial accountability and technical efficiency. ### Forming the Optimization Project Team * A specialized team consisting of Cloud Infrastructure Engineers and Technical Program Managers (TPMs) was established to bridge the gap between finance and engineering. * The project team focused on educating domain teams about the variable cost model of cloud services, moving away from a fixed-cost mindset. * Technical experts helped domain teams identify opportunities to use cost-efficient technologies, such as ARM-based AWS Graviton processors and AWS Spot Instances for data processing. * The initiative established clear ownership, ensuring that each domain team understood and managed their specific cloud resource usage. ### Analytics and Dashboards for Visibility * Engineers developed custom dashboards using Amazon Athena to process Amazon CloudWatch data, providing deep insights into resource performance. * The team utilized AWS Cost & Usage Reports (CUR) within internal Business Intelligence (BI) tools to provide granular visibility into spending patterns. * Finance teams worked alongside engineers to align technical roadmaps with monthly and quarterly budget goals, making cost management a shared responsibility. ### Strategies for Usage and Cost Reduction * **Spend Less (Usage Reduction):** Coupang implemented automation to ensure that non-production environment resources were only active when needed, resulting in a 25% cost saving for those environments. * **Pay Less (Right-sizing):** The team analyzed usage patterns to manually identify and decommission unused EC2 resources across all domain teams. * **Instance and Storage Optimization:** The project prioritized migrating workloads to the latest instance generations and optimizing Amazon S3 storage structures to reduce costs for data at rest. To achieve sustainable cloud efficiency, organizations should move beyond simple monitoring and foster an engineering culture where resource management is a core technical discipline. Prioritizing automated resource scheduling and adopting modern, high-efficiency hardware like Graviton instances are essential steps for any large-scale cloud operation looking to maximize its return on investment.

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coupang·Nov 14, 2024Original article

Cloud expenditure optimization for cost efficiency (opens in new tab)

Coupang addressed rising cloud costs by establishing a cross-functional Central team to bridge the gap between engineering usage and financial accountability. Through a data-driven approach involving custom analytics and automated resource management, the company successfully reduced on-demand expenditure by millions of dollars. This initiative demonstrates that aligning technical infrastructure with financial governance is essential for maintaining growth without unnecessary waste. **The Central Team and Data-Driven Governance** * Coupang formed a specialized Central team consisting of infrastructure engineers and technical program managers to identify efficiency opportunities across the organization. * The team developed custom BI dashboards utilizing Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR), and Amazon Athena to provide domain teams with actionable insights into their spending. * The finance department partnered with engineering to enforce strict budget compliance, ensuring that domain teams managed their resources within assigned monthly and quarterly limits. **Strategies for Spending and Paying Less** * The company implemented "Spending Less" strategies by automating the launch of resources in non-production environments only when needed, resulting in a 25% cost reduction for those areas. * "Paying Less" initiatives focused on rightsizing, where the Central team worked with domain owners to manually identify and eliminate unutilized or underutilized EC2 resources. * Workloads were migrated to more efficient hardware and pricing models, specifically leveraging ARM-based AWS Graviton processors and AWS Spot Instances for data processing and storage. **Targeted Infrastructure Optimization** * Engineering teams focused on instance generation alignment, ensuring that services were running on the most cost-effective hardware generations available. * Storage costs were reduced by optimizing Amazon S3 structures at rest, improving how data is organized and stored. * The team refined Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) configurations to enhance processing efficiency, significantly lowering the cost of large-scale data analysis. To achieve sustainable cloud efficiency, engineering organizations should move beyond viewing cloud costs as a purely financial concern and instead treat resource management as a core technical metric. By integrating financial accountability directly into the engineering workflow through shared analytics and automated resource controls, companies can foster a culture of efficiency that supports long-term scalability.

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