CloudWatch Log Retention Gone Wrong: How We Turned $900 of Waste into $0

"Two terabytes of logs? For what?!"

My heart sank as I stared at the AWS Cost Explorer. Our monthly bill had spiked by $900, and the culprit was…CloudWatch logs. Not glamorous, I know. But two terabytes of logs residing in a single log group? Something was seriously amiss.

This wasn't a mission-critical application logging everything under the sun. This was a small, internal tool. How could it possibly generate so much data?

An abstract representation of an ever-growing stream of data, symbolizing the accumulation of logs.

The Never-Ending Log Stream

Our initial investigation revealed the obvious: the log group was configured with infinite retention. Someone, at some point, had checked the "Never Expire" box and forgotten about it. Two years' worth of logs had accumulated, quietly racking up charges.

"Easy fix," I thought. "Just change the retention policy and we're good."

The Manual Cleanup Nightmare

Turns out, deleting two terabytes of logs isn't as simple as clicking a button. The AWS console timed out. The CLI choked. We even tried scripting it, but the sheer volume of data overwhelmed everything.

We were stuck with a ticking time bomb of log data and no easy way to defuse it.

A visual metaphor for the difficulty of managing and deleting large amounts of data.
An abstract image depicting automated processes and streamlined workflows, representing EazyOps' solution.

EazyOps to the Rescue

That's when we turned to EazyOps. We were already using it for other cost optimization tasks, but we hadn't explored its log management capabilities. It scanned our AWS account, flagged the offending log group, and recommended a 30-day retention policy. With a single click, EazyOps automatically applied the new policy and, crucially, archived the older logs to a much cheaper storage tier.

The entire process took minutes, not days. And the relief? Immense.

The Results: From $900 to $0

The following month, our CloudWatch bill for that log group was effectively $0. EazyOps not only solved our immediate problem but also prevented it from happening again. It now continuously monitors our log groups, flags misaligned retention policies, and suggests best practices.

More importantly, it gave us back something far more valuable than $900: peace of mind.

A visual representation of cost savings and efficient resource management.

About Shujat

Shujat is a Senior Backend Engineer at EazyOps, working at the intersection of performance engineering, cloud cost optimization, and AI infrastructure. He writes to share practical strategies for building efficient, intelligent systems.