[psa] Shut down unused ELBs to reduce cost

Background

There are multiple Elastic Load Balancers (ELB) currently running in tvlk-prod and tvlk-dev accounts with no instances attached or with all attached instances stopped. Since even unused ELBs are billed by the hour, terminating these ELBs down presents a cost-saving opportunity.

To reduce infrastructure cost, we suggest owners terminate unused ELBs, i.e. ELBs that are:

running without instances/backend attached
running with no instances/backend in “Running” state

Total potential savings from this action in tvlk-prod and tvlk-dev alone are $4,000/month.

How to find unused ELBs

Cloud Infrastructure team has created a Python Script to list all unused Load Balancers. The script will generate a CSV file containing a list of unused Load Balancers.

How to shut down unused ELBs

Option 1: Destroy Terraform stack

If your ELB is part of the Terraform stack you’re not currently using, delete the unused resources using terraform destroy command.

Option 2: Using Python Script

Cloud Infrastructure team has created a Python Script to remove all unused Load Balancers.

Option 3: Using the AWS Console

Go to the “EC2" dashboard
On the left side select Load Balancers menu
Find your unused Load Balancer and select them
On the above menu, select “Action”
Click on “Delete” option

Option 4: Using the AWS CLI

aws \
elb \
delete-load-balancer \
--load-balancer-name {{name of your load balancer}}

Unused Load Balancers running in `tvlk-prod` and `tvlk-dev`

You can access the list of unused Load Balancers that currently running in the tvlk-prod and tvlk-dev accounts in this SpreadSheet document. If one or more instances listed below belong to your product domain, check if you actually need them running

Please review your dedicated AWS accounts as well.

References

Original blog post

The original blog post of this PSA can be found on Cloud Infrastructure Space: https://29022131.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SI/blog/2020/04/13/1329924972/psa+Shut+down+unused+ELBs+to+reduce+cost