One of the essential aspects to consider for businesses operating on cloud platforms like AWS is the judicious use of cloud resources. Efficient utilization of resources not only helps organizations to reduce costs but also improves performance and operational efficiency. There are several tools and services provided by AWS to help administrators identify and remediate underutilized or unused resources like Trusted Advisor, AWS Cost Explorer, and AWS Compute Optimizer.
AWS Trusted Advisor
AWS Trusted Advisor is one of the key tools to enhance the performance and reduce costs by optimizing AWS environments. It analyzes your AWS usage and provides real-time recommendations in five categories: Cost Optimization, Performance, Security, Fault Tolerance, and Service Limits.
In context with cost optimization, Trusted Advisor identifies underutilized Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances based on CPU utilization and Network I/O metrics. It can also detect unused Elastic Load Balancers and Amazon RDS instances which are not connected to any Amazon EC2 instances. Trusted Advisor allows you to review and take appropriate actions to remove or modify these resources based on these insights.
AWS Compute Optimizer
AWS Compute Optimizer is another proficient tool AWS provides to users for resources optimization. This tool recommends optimal AWS resources for your workloads to reduce costs and improve performance. Compute Optimizer analyzes the configuration and resource utilization of a workload to identify potential performance bottlenecks and overprovisioned resources.
The service provides recommendations for instances types, Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) volume types, and sizes that can provide better performance or cost savings for your workloads. For example, if an Amazon EC2 instance is underutilized, Compute Optimizer might recommend a smaller instance type that can save costs while still delivering the required performance.
AWS Cost Explorer
AWS Cost Explorer is a user-friendly interface that enables you to visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time. It provides data up to the last 13 months and in the future, which helps in identifying trends, exploring potential saving opportunities, and creating cost awareness among your teams.
Cost Explorer includes a set of reports that show you the cost and usage patterns of your AWS resources. For example, you can detect and analyze underutilized Amazon RDS instances and Amazon EBS volumes by gathering cost-related data from AWS.
Conclusion
Identifying and remedying underutilized or unused resources is critical for cost optimization in any AWS environment. Services like AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Compute Optimizer, and AWS Cost Explorer provide users with actionable insights and recommendations to get the maximum value out of their AWS resources. By leveraging these services, businesses can run more efficiently and cost-effectively while increasing their overall operational efficiency.
Note
This topic is especially relevant for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) exam takers, as questions regarding optimizing resources and reducing costs are key components of the exam. By understanding how to identify and remediate underutilized resources using AWS tools, you will be in a favourable position to excel in the certification test and better manage AWS environments in real-life scenarios.
Practice Test
True or False: AWS Trusted Advisor can help identify and remediate underutilized or unused resources.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: AWS Trusted Advisor is a tool that provides real-time guidance to help provision resources following AWS best practices. It can help identify underutilized or unused resources.
What is the primary purpose of AWS Compute Optimizer?
- a) To optimize computing resources
- b) To identify unused resources
- c) To remediate underutilized resources
- d) To generate cost reports
Answer: a) To optimize computing resources
Explanation: AWS Compute Optimizer analyzes the configuration and utilization metrics of your AWS resources, then recommends optimal configurations.
AWS Cost Explorer is primarily used for identifying underutilized resources. True/False?
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: The primary function of AWS Cost Explorer is to visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time.
Which AWS Service provides real-time guidance to provision your resources following best practices?
- a) AWS Lambda
- b) AWS Trusted Advisor
- c) AWS Compute Optimizer
- d) Amazon CloudWatch
Answer: b) AWS Trusted Advisor
Explanation: AWS Trusted Advisor checks your environment and provides guidance for optimizing your AWS deployments.
True or False: AWS Trusted Advisor only checks for high usage resources and doesn’t monitor underutilized ones.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: AWS Trusted Advisor helps in optimizing AWS resources, and this includes identifying both high usage and underutilized resources.
AWS Compute Optimizer provides recommendations on the basis of which of the following?
- a) Resource configuration
- b) Resource utilization
- c) Both a and b
- d) None of the above
Answer: c) Both a and b
Explanation: AWS Compute Optimizer analyzes your resource configurations and utilization to provide recommendation for optimal configurations.
AWS Cost Explorer can assist in:
- a) Visualizing costs
- b) Understanding costs
- c) Managing costs
- d) All of the above
Answer: d) All of the above
Explanation: AWS Cost Explorer enables users to visualize, understand, and manage AWS costs and usage over time.
AWS Trusted Advisor can remediate underutilized resources. True/False?
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: AWS Trusted Advisor can identify underutilized or unused resources but does not remediate them. Remediation must be done manually.
AWS Compute Optimizer is a free service that delivers _________.
- a) Ongoing usage reports
- b) Detailed cost analysis
- c) Optimal resource recommendations
- d) Remediation of underutilized resources
Answer: c) Optimal resource recommendations
Explanation: AWS Compute Optimizer recommends optimal AWS resources for your workloads to reduce costs and improve performance.
AWS Cost Explorer provides a view of data for up to the last _____ months, and forecasts how much you are likely to spend for the next _____ months.
- a) 3,3
- b) 6,6
- c) 12,12
- d) 24,3
Answer: d) 24,3
Explanation: AWS Cost Explorer provides a view of data for up to the last 24 months and forecasts how much you are likely to spend for the next 3 months.
Interview Questions
What AWS service can identify unused resources?
AWS Trusted Advisor can identify underutilized or unused EC2 instances, Elastic IP addresses, and Load Balancers.
What is the AWS Compute Optimizer?
AWS Compute Optimizer recommends optimal AWS resources for your workloads to reduce costs and improve performance by analyzing historical utilization metrics.
How does AWS Cost Explorer help in resource optimization?
AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that enables AWS users to view and analyze their costs and usage over time. This insight can help identify under-utilized resources contributing to unnecessary costs.
Can Trusted Advisor identify underutilized Amazon EBS volumes?
Yes, Trusted Advisor can identify low-utilization Amazon EBS volumes.
How to ensure the cost-effectiveness of EC2 instances with AWS tools?
AWS Compute Optimizer can suggest more cost-effective instance types or families based on the workload’s utilization history.
Is it possible to automate the unattachment of unused Elastic Load Balancer?
Yes, this is possible by setting up AWS CloudWatch alarms and AWS Lambda to detect and detach underutilized or unutilized Elastic Load Balancers.
What AWS service can be used to examine and control AWS costs in detail?
AWS Cost Explorer can be used to visualize, understand, and manage AWS costs and usage over time.
How often does Trusted Advisor check for low-utilization instances?
Trusted Advisor checks for low utilization Amazon EC2 instances every 14 days.
How does AWS Compute Optimizer provide recommendations for reducing cost?
AWS Compute Optimizer uses machine learning to analyze historical utilization metrics and provides recommendations for instance size and type that matches the performance of the original instance but at lower cost.
What recommendations can AWS Compute Optimizer provide?
AWS Compute Optimizer can provide recommendations for EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and Lambda functions to ensure resources are optimized for cost and performance.
Does AWS Trusted Advisor suggest optimizations for all Amazon services?
No, AWS Trusted Advisor primarily provides insights for Amazon EC2, Elastic IP, Elastic Load Balancer, and Amazon EBS.
What is the role of AWS Cost Explorer in optimizing resource utilization?
AWS Cost Explorer provides detailed insights into your cost and usage patterns, helping you identify underutilized resources, and providing recommendations for cost optimization.
Can we automate the stopping or termination of underutilized EC2 instances using AWS tools?
Yes, by using CloudWatch alarms to monitor CPU utilization, combined with AWS Lambda for automatic instance shutdown or termination.
What is the primary use case of AWS Compute Optimizer?
The primary use case of the AWS Compute Optimizer is to recommend optimal AWS resources for your workloads to reduce costs and improve performance.
What can happen if you don’t release unused Elastic IPs?
If Elastic IPs are not released when not in use, AWS will charge for each unused IP, leading to unnecessary costs.
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