by Jan Dolalas
When you’re dealing with nearly 1GB of raw AWS cost data (that’s equivalent to about 200 songs streamed!), time quickly becomes a luxury. That was the reality for Freddy Montes and the Cebu IT team managing AEV’s FinOps and AWS cost monitoring. Each billing cycle meant spending 5–8 hours wrangling spreadsheets and crossing fingers that a single glitch wouldn’t break the entire workbook.
That is, until curiosity and a casual hallway conversation sparked a transformation.
Python-powered Conversations
The turning point was when Freddy casually shared his spreadsheet struggles with a colleague from another business unit, who just happened to have a background in programming. That conversation led to the creation of a 53-line Python script that now processes the same massive dataset in just 1–2 minutes, error-free.
In tandem, the team integrated the AWS Cost and Usage Dashboard Operations Solution (CUDOS) for real-time, visual tracking. They standardized asset tagging, making it easier to track project-level spend across Strategic Business Units (SBUs).
“Before, you had to open Excel, load almost a gig of data, manually clean it, and hope your system didn’t crash,” Freddy shares. “Now, I just run the script, and everything’s neatly sorted in seconds.”
Off the Burnout Path
While the Python upgrade is impressive, the real victory lies in the emotional shift it enabled.
“I used to spend hours sorting AWS billing data, and one small copy-paste error could throw the entire calculation off,” Freddy explains. “Worse, tracing those errors often meant starting from scratch. It was draining.”
Today, that time has been reclaimed. Team members can now focus on more strategic work and experience less anxiety around data.
“We’re no longer afraid of data. We’ve realized it’s not something to fear, it’s something we can master.”
This change has sparked a ripple effect. The team is now more confident in exploring new tools, more open to automation, and more proactive in simplifying complex information.
What started as one Python script has become a catalyst for a mindset shift, reminding us that sometimes, the best innovations begin with a simple conversation and the courage to try something new.