Talk Intermediate First Talk

Reducing AWS Glue bills by 25 times using Airflow!

Rejected

Session Description

When your AWS Glue bill hits $10,000/month, proprietary serverless solutions show their dark side. This talk reveals how we leveraged FOSS to break free from vendor lock-in, migrating 80 ETL pipelines from AWS Glue to Apache Airflow. By embracing open-source tools and self-managed infrastructure, we slashed costs by 96% to just $400/month while maintaining performance. Learn our battle-tested approach using Terraform, Docker, and Kubernetes to build a scalable ETL platform that puts you in control. Discover when choosing FOSS over managed services isn't just about cost—it's about freedom from proprietary constraints and unexpected cloud bills.

Key Takeaways

• Breaking Vendor Lock-in: Learn practical strategies to escape proprietary services using FOSS alternatives without sacrificing functionality or reliability

• 96% Cost Reduction Blueprint: Understand the complete architecture and implementation details to replicate our $10,000 to $400/month transformation

• Infrastructure as Code: Get battle-tested Terraform configurations and Docker strategies for deploying production-ready Airflow on Kubernetes

• Zero-Downtime Migration: Master techniques for seamlessly transitioning ETL pipelines from managed services to self-hosted solutions

• When FOSS Wins: Identify clear indicators when open-source solutions outperform expensive managed services, plus pitfalls to avoid during implementation

References

https://airflow.apache.org/docs/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/glue/

Session Categories

Introducing a FOSS project or a new version of a popular project

Contributing to FOSS

Which track are you applying for?

Main track

Speakers

Akash Singh

Akash Singh (SkySingh04) is a Golang and DevOps specialist currently working as an SDE at FinalroundAI. Previously, he worked as a DevOps Engineer at Aspora and Embeddings Co, and Backend Engineer at CloudSek. An active open-source contributor, he was selected for GSoC 2024 (Keploy) and Linux Foundation Mentorship 2025 (LitmusChaos). He led the winning team at Hackglobal Singapore 2024 and has won 5 hackathons. As Point Blank's Team Lead, he teaches tech to peers and juniors, having also trained professionally at SwipeGen and CodingZen. Beyond coding, he's an accomplished public speaker and emcee.

SDE | FinalroundAI https://www.linkedin.com/in/skysingh04/

Reviews

I think this comes under one of the flasgship values of "Open Source" -- the practical benefits of using open source softwares. (less on the liberty aspect.. though there is scope for it)

Reviewer #1 Approved

This is a great topic, and helps promote open-source tech a lot more by showing real usecases.

Reviewer #2 Approved

Vendor lock-in has been a significant problem in modern infrastructure. The open source solution Airflow promotes the benefits of the same and also reducing the cost.

Reviewer #3 Approved

Thank you for submitting your proposal for IndiaFOSS 2025. Your submission was well-received and progressed to our final review stages.

Unfortunately, due to the high volume of excellent proposals this year, we were unable to select your talk for the final program. We appreciate the effort you put into your submission and encourage you to apply again for future events.

Reviewer #4 Rejected