Case Study: Cornell University achieves unified cloud visibility and reduced AWS costs with NetApp's CloudCheckr

Cornell University Unites Cloud Systems for Better Visibility

Cornell University, a leading private research university, was migrating workloads from on‑premises data centers to AWS and struggled to manage 65 separate AWS accounts. The IT team needed consolidated governance, clearer cost allocation and invoicing for colleges and departments, and strong compliance controls for regulations such as FERPA and HIPAA, but lacked the cross‑account visibility and billing tools to do so.

Cornell selected CloudCheckr (now part of Spot by NetApp) to provide a cloud management platform that aggregates cross‑account data via AWS IAM, tracks billing and resource inventory, runs automated compliance checks (450+), and delivers actionable optimization and security recommendations. The platform enabled clear cost allocation and invoicing, helped identify vulnerabilities during a malware incident, improved security and compliance posture, and gave the university better cost control and ROI as it continued its cloudification.

Cornell University

Sarah Christen

Assistant Director of Community Platforms and Cloudification Services