Costs - Monthly
SOC 2-Driven Cost Implications (Monthly)
Area | Change Needed | AWS Service(s) | Est. Additional Monthly Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Identity & Access Management (IAM) | MFA for all IAM users, SSO (via AWS IAM Identity Center w/ Google Workspace), IAM Access Analyzer | AWS IAM Identity Center | $0 (AWS service free, small SSO cost via Google Workspace if not already paid) | You already pay Google Workspace — SSO via AWS is free. |
Remove unused IAM keys, audit policies | N/A | $0 | Just labor time. | |
Private DB Access | Move RDS to private subnet (with NAT for ECS nodes) | NAT Gateway + data processing | ~$36–$80 | Each NAT GW: $32.40 + data ($0.045/GB). If ECS tasks pull/push ~200–1,000 GB/mo, cost grows. |
Encryption | Enable KMS encryption (S3, RDS, EBS) | AWS KMS | ~$1–$3 | Each KMS API request is billed; low cost at your scale. |
Shield Advanced (optional) | Advanced DDoS protection | AWS Shield Advanced | $3,000 | Only if RFP/gov customer insists — otherwise, Shield Standard (free) is fine. |
CloudTrail | Org-wide logging, 1 year retention in S3 | CloudTrail + S3 storage | $10–$40 | Trail logging is $2.00/100k events; storage ~10–30 GB/mo compressed. |
GuardDuty | Threat detection | AWS GuardDuty | $15–$30 | Pricing: $4.00/million events analyzed. With your small footprint, cheap. |
WAF | Already enabled | AWS WAF | No Change | SOC 2 happy. |
Backups | RDS Multi-AZ | RDS | +~$129 | Same as current DB cost (effectively doubles DB price). |
Cross-region RDS snapshot copy | RDS + S3 | $5–$15 | Cheap if done daily. | |
Disaster Recovery (Failover DB) | Cross-region replica | RDS + data transfer | +~$150–$180 | Doubles storage + replication transfer. |
Vulnerability Scanning | AWS Inspector | Inspector | $0.15/instance/hr → ~$216 for 2 ECS nodes | Continuous scanning billed hourly. |
Secrets Management | AWS Secrets Manager for all DB/API creds | Secrets Manager | $0.40/secret/mo → ~$4–$8 | Assuming 10–20 secrets. |
Logging & Monitoring | Store security logs in S3 for 1+ years | S3 + Glacier Deep Archive | $5–$15 | Move older logs to Glacier to save $. |
SIEM (stay AWS-native) | CloudWatch + Athena for queries | $10–$20 | You already use SigNoz — keep heavy logs there, store audit logs in S3. | |
Private ECS Nodes | Move ECS nodes to private subnet | NAT Gateway cost | ~$36–$80 | Same as DB private subnet — NAT fees. |
- SOC 2 doesn’t mandate cross-region DB replication — it just wants a DR plan that meets your RTO/RPO. You could pass with daily backups + tested restore.
- Biggest jump is AWS Inspector — if budget tight, you could replace with free open-source + one-off pentests.
- Moving ECS & RDS to private subnets will force NAT costs, which is the second sneaky cost driver after Inspector.
- You can keep under $500/mo extra to current if you avoid Multi-AZ + Inspector + Shield Adv.
Category | Approx. Additional Cost |
|---|---|
IAM + SSO | $0 |
Private Networking (DB+ECS NAT) | $36–$80 |
Encryption | $1–$3 |
CloudTrail + S3 logs | $10–$40 |
GuardDuty | $15–$30 |
RDS Multi-AZ Replica (Failover) | +$129 |
Cross-region DR (optional) | +$150–$180 |
AWS Inspector | $216 |
Secrets Manager | $10–$20 |
Glacier Log Archive | $5–$15 |
Total (No DR, minimal) | ~$416–$521/mo |
Total (With DR) | ~$566–$701/mo |
Total (With Shield Adv - optional) | +$3,000/mo extra |
EXTENDED
Instance Equivalents & Pricing:
GCP Instance | AWS Equivalent | vCPU / RAM | AWS On-Demand Cost/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
Jenkins : e2-standard-4 (4 vCPUs, 16 GB) | t3.xlarge (4 vCPU, 16 GB) | 4 / 16 GB | ~$121.47 |
SigNoz : e2-custom-4-10240 (4 vCPU, 10 GB) | t3.xlarge (closest match) | 4 / 16 GB | ~$121.47 |
Summary: Monthly Cost Impact
Component | AWS Equivalent | Estimated Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
Jenkins Server | t3.xlarge + 100 GB EBS | ~$129.47 |
SigNoz Server | t3.xlarge + 120 GB EBS | ~$131.07 |
Combined Total | ~$260.54/month |