high school students work on a cybersecurity problem
By optimizing its cost model, the Cyber Range will be able to continue offering top quality courseware to cybersecurity students and educators across Virginia.

The Virginia Cyber Range successfully launched an Amazon Web Services (AWS) cost optimization initiative which significantly reduced operational expenses. This effort focused on optimizing the use of Amazon EC2 reserved instances for always-on services, including Guacamole servers and Squid proxy servers. By prepaying for these instances, the Cyber Range was able to achieve a substantial reduction in compute costs, resulting in an estimated annual savings of $9,000.

As part of a broader cost-saving measure, the Cyber Range introduced persistent and non-persistent environments to its users. Previously, persistent environments were the default and only option for Cyber Range users. While ideal for long-term projects and complex exercises, persistent environments can lead to higher costs due to continuous resource usage. Now, non-persistent environments are available as a more cost-effective option. These temporary, session-based environments help minimize costs by limiting resource usage to only when needed.

To provide U.S. Cyber Range instructors with pricing flexibility, new rate plans were introduced for persistent and non-persistent environments. This approach allows users to choose the most cost-effective solution based on their specific needs and usage patterns. Additionally, each environment in the Cyber Range now offers persistence recommendations based on the environment objectives, allowing the Virginia Cyber Range to continue to be good stewards of state-allocated resources.

These cost optimization and resource management efforts demonstrate the Cyber Range’s commitment to financial stewardship and innovation, helping to ensure the continued availability of high-quality services while maintaining cost efficiency.