Three such essential AWS cost management tools are Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, and AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR). These services offer detailed reports about your AWS costs, enabling you to better understand and manage your expenditures.
1. AWS Cost Explorer
AWS Cost Explorer is a user-friendly interface that allows users to visualize, understand, and manage their AWS costs and usage over time. It provides data for up to the last 13 months, and you can forecast how much you’re likely to spend for the next three months.
Use-Case:
Consider a large enterprise using multiple AWS services across different departments. With Cost Explorer, the finance team can analyze the cost trends, identify the services leading to major expenses, predict future costs, and strategize cost optimization accordingly.
2. AWS Budgets
AWS Budgets allows you to set custom cost and usage budgets that alert you when your costs or usage exceed (or are forecasted to exceed) the budgeted amount.
Use-Case:
For instance, a start-up company has a limited budget for their AWS services. They can use AWS Budgets to set a cost budget and will receive alerts if their usage approaches or exceeds their budgeted amount. This tool helps in proactively managing costs and reducing the risk of unwanted expenses.
3. AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR)
AWS Cost and Usage Report lists AWS usage for each service category used by an account and its IAM users in hourly or daily line items, as well as any tags that have been activated for cost allocation purposes. It gives comprehensive cost and usage data that can be used in business intelligence tools or in your own custom-built applications.
Use-Case:
For example, a tech company provides AWS cloud solutions to various clients. They want to generate client-specific, detailed cost and usage reports for precise invoicing. AWS CUR is optimal for such a scenario, it can provide detailed data per account or even based on user-defined tags.
| AWS Tool | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Cost Explorer | Effectively Track and Visualize Costs, Identify Trends, Spot Cost Drivers, and Detect Anomalies |
| AWS Budgets | Set Custom Cost and Usage Budgets, Get Alerts, and Act to Adjust and Control Your Costs |
| AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) | Get Comprehensive Cost and Usage Data, Useful for Detailed Analysis |
Each of these AWS cost management tools provides unique features and functionality, though they all aid in gaining better visibility and control over AWS expenditures. Depending upon the use-case and specific requirements, businesses may opt to use one or more of these tools in conjunction to efficiently manage and optimize their AWS costs.
It’s important to note that using these tools does not directly reduce costs but equips you with detailed insights about your usage and expenditure, aiding you to take informed decisions and devise effective cost management strategies.
It’s highly recommended for candidates of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) exam to have a good understanding of AWS cost management tools and their applications. It constitutes a crucial part of managing the financial aspects of a solution and adds significant value to your credentials as a solutions architect.
Practice Test
True or False: AWS Cost Explorer is a free tool provided by AWS for monitoring AWS cost and usage.
• True
• False
Answer: TRUE
Explanation: AWS Cost Explorer is indeed a free tool provided by AWS to monitor cost and usage information of your account.
What does AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) provide?
• a) Detailed data about your AWS usage
• b) A summary of your monthly AWS bills
• c) A report on any security incidents in your AWS accounts
• d) Suggestions for cost optimization
Answer: a) Detailed data about your AWS usage
Explanation: AWS Cost and Usage Report provides comprehensive data about your AWS costs and usage, while other features like bill summary, security incidents report and cost optimization are provided by other tools.
True or False: AWS Budgets can send email notifications when your costs or usage exceed your budgeted amount.
• True
• False
Answer: TRUE
Explanation: AWS Budgets allows you to set custom cost and usage budgets and send alert notifications by email when your usage exceeds your set threshold.
Can AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR) include data from multiple AWS accounts?
• a) Yes
• b) No
Answer: a) Yes
Explanation: AWS Cost and Usage Reports can include data from all your AWS accounts if you have set up a consolidated billing.
True or False: AWS Budgets can only track costs, not usage data.
• True
• False
Answer: FALSE
Explanation: AWS Budgets lets you set both cost budgets and usage budgets.
Which is the suitable tool in AWS for visualizing, understanding, and managing your AWS costs and usage over time?
• a) AWS Inspector
• b) AWS CloudTrail
• c) AWS Cost Explorer
• d) AWS Budgets
Answer: c) AWS Cost Explorer
Explanation: AWS Cost Explorer provides an easy-to-use interface that lets users visualize, understand, and manage their AWS costs and usage over time.
Which of the following AWS cost management tools provide recommendations for cost optimizations?
• a) AWS Cost Explorer
• b) AWS Budgets
• c) AWS Cost and Usage Report
• d) All of the above
Answer: a) AWS Cost Explorer
Explanation: AWS Cost Explorer includes a set of default reports that provide recommended actions to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
In which form is the AWS Cost & Usage Report available?
• a) CSV
• b) JSON
• c) XML
• d) Excel format
Answer: a) CSV
Explanation: The AWS Cost & Usage Report is available in a comma-separated value (CSV) format.
Is AWS Cost Explorer capable of forecasting future spend based on historical data?
• a) Yes
• b) No
Answer: a) Yes
Explanation: AWS Cost Explorer uses your usage trends and AWS pricing data to forecast your future month-to-date costs.
What resource usage does AWS Budgets track?
• a) EC2 instances
• b) S3 storage
• c) Lambda functions
• d) All of the above
Answer: d) All of the above
Explanation: AWS Budgets tracks the usage of all AWS resources linked with cost.
Interview Questions
What is AWS Cost Explorer and what is a use case for this tool?
AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that provides detailed reporting on your AWS usage and costs. It allows you to visualize your AWS spend and make more informed decisions regarding cost management. A use case for Cost Explorer would be for businesses wanting to estimate future costs based on past usage trends.
What is AWS Budgets and how can it be used?
AWS Budgets allows you to set custom cost and usage budgets that alert you when your costs or usage exceed (or are forecasted to exceed) your budgeted amount. A use case can be set monthly budgets at a service level for Amazon EC2 and receive alerts when your usage exceeds your budgeted amount.
What is the purpose of the AWS Cost and Usage Report?
The AWS Cost and Usage Report contains the most comprehensive set of AWS cost and usage data available. It provides detailed information about your AWS costs, including information by product, usage type, and more. You can use this report to better understand your costs and monitor your AWS expenditure.
How can AWS Cost Explorer help with reserved instance planning?
AWS Cost Explorer helps with Reserved Instance planning by providing recommendations based on your past usage. It can show potential cost savings through upfront payment options and allows you to visualize the impact on your budget.
What is AWS Cost Anomaly Detection?
AWS Cost Anomaly Detection uses machine learning to continuously monitor your spending patterns and detect abnormal spend to enable immediate remediation. It can help a customer to take immediate action in case of unusual spending.
How can AWS Cost and Usage Report be used to optimize costs?
The AWS Cost and Usage Report allows businesses to understand their AWS bill by breaking their costs down by AWS service, account, tag, and even hour of the day. This transparency allows businesses to find and eliminate unnecessary costs.
How does AWS Budgets differ from AWS Cost Explorer?
AWS Budgets helps you plan service usage, cost, and capacity spending. With AWS Cost Explorer, you can visualize, understand, and manage your costs and usage over time. In essence, AWS Budgets is more of a pro-active tool while AWS Cost Explorer is a reactive tool.
How can AWS Savings Plans be used in cost optimization?
AWS Savings Plans offer significant savings on Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate usage. You can commit to a consistent amount of usage over 1 or 3 years to save up to 72% compared to on-demand prices.
Can AWS Cost Explorer help in identifying underutilized resources?
Yes, AWS Cost Explorer can be used to identify underutilized resources. Using the right-to-left stacked area chart, a user can view an area chart that breaks down their costs by a chosen dimension, for a selected period of time.
Can AWS Cost and Usage Report detail cost associated with a specific resource?
Yes, you can use Resource IDs in AWS Cost and Usage Report to get detailed cost information about individual resources.
How does AWS Budgets help in cost management?
AWS Budgets enable users to set custom cost and usage budgets and sends alerts via email or SNS when user-defined thresholds are exceeded, thereby helping users to manage costs.
Can AWS Cost Explorer provide recommendations for budgeting?
Yes, AWS Cost Explorer does provide cost optimization recommendations. It uses past usage patterns to provide recommendations on how to optimize costs.
How can AWS Cost Anomaly Detection benefit your organization in cost management?
AWS Cost Anomaly Detection can help you manage your AWS costs by alerting you to abnormal spending patterns. This allows you to investigate and respond quickly to unexpected cost overruns.
What is the advantage of setting up AWS Budgets alerts?
Setting up AWS Budgets alerts will proactively notify you when your AWS usage or costs exceed the thresholds you’ve set, allowing you to control your AWS spending effectively.
Can AWS Savings Plans be utilized for AWS Lambda and other services?
AWS Savings Plans currently apply to Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, and AWS Fargate usage. Customers commit to a consistent amount of usage and can achieve cost savings over the on-demand rate.
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