AWS VPC & Network Architecture
Subnets, routing and security groups laid out so the next person can read them.
From $349 2–4 days
Highly Available AWS Architecture
More than one of everything that matters, and a failover somebody has actually performed.
Price and scope
From $849
Typically $849–$2,199, fixed in writing before anything starts.
What moves it up
- A stateful application, where the state has to move somewhere before anything else can
- A database failover that has to be tested rather than assumed
- A recovery time objective somebody outside engineering has committed to
Some of this you can check yourself, right now, for free: Downtime Cost Calculator →
What actually goes wrong
Multi-AZ gets switched on for RDS, and from that point the system is described as highly available. The application tier is still one instance in one availability zone, so the database can survive something the thing in front of it cannot. And nobody has ever performed the failover, which means the standby is a belief rather than a measurement. The detail that turns a successful failover into an outage anyway is almost always session state held in the instance's memory: the infrastructure recovers in ninety seconds and every logged-in user is signed out.
How I find it
aws rds describe-db-instances --query 'DBInstances[].[MultiAZ,SecondaryAvailabilityZone]'aws autoscaling describe-auto-scaling-groups --query 'AutoScalingGroups[].[MinSize,AvailabilityZones]'aws rds reboot-db-instance --force-failover, in an agreed window, with the seconds countedWhere sessions are stored — checked in the application configuration, not assumed from the framework
What you get
- At least two availability zones carrying real capacity, not one plus a standby nobody uses
- Session and upload state moved out of instance memory and off local disk
- A load balancer with health checks that remove a bad instance rather than balancing onto it
- A forced failover performed in an agreed window, with the actual recovery time measured and written down
- A written statement of what survives which failure, and what does not — including the cases still single-homed
Questions
What does this actually protect me against?
One availability zone failing, one instance failing, and one database failing. It does not protect against a whole region going down, a bad deploy, or somebody deleting the data — those are different pieces of work, and conflating them is how people end up paying for one and believing they bought all four.
How much more will it cost to run?
Roughly double for anything that has to exist twice, plus cross-zone data transfer. That is a real number and it is worth checking against what an hour of downtime costs you before you agree to it — sometimes the honest answer is that you should not buy this yet.
Do you test the failover, or just configure it?
Test it. A forced failover in an agreed window, with the recovery time measured rather than quoted from documentation. An untested standby has failed as often as it has worked, and you find out which on the worst possible day.
Is three availability zones better than two?
Rarely, at this size. Three costs meaningfully more in cross-zone traffic and buys protection against a scenario — two simultaneous zone failures — that is far less likely than the deploy that takes you down anyway. Two, done properly, beats three done partially.
If this is not quite it
Database Migration to Amazon RDS
PostgreSQL or MySQL onto RDS, with the cutover rehearsed and a way back.
From $549 3–7 days
Want this done?
Tell me what you are running and I will come back with a fixed price and a date. If it turns out you do not need this, I will say that instead.
Prefer to talk? Book a free call ↗ · Or hire me on Upwork ↗ · Typical reply within one business day.
Before you enquire
When I answer
Sunday to Thursday, 09:00–18:00 EET. Outside that I will still look, but I will not promise a time.
No 24/7 desk, and I will not pretend otherwise
One person, one time zone. If round-the-clock cover is what you need, you need a team, and I will say so rather than sell you a plan that cannot deliver it.
Your AWS bill stays yours
You pay Amazon directly and you keep control of the account. Nothing here resells your infrastructure or sits between you and your own billing.
A price that starts with "from" is a starting price
Every service page lists exactly what pushes a quote above it, before you ask. You get a fixed number in writing before any work begins.