Concepts
What it is: AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that allows users to visualize their AWS spending over time. With Cost Explorer, you can analyze your costs and usage using pre-configured views or by customizing your tracking according to various dimensions such as service, tags, or accounts.
Use Cases:
- Analyzing Trends: Identify trends in your spending over time to predict future costs. For example, use Cost Explorer to see if your costs are increasing due to higher usage or price changes.
- Cost Allocation: Use tags to categorize costs by project, department, or environment to understand where your money is going.
- Optimizing Resources: Detect underutilized resources. For instance, EC2 instances running at low capacity might indicate an opportunity for resizing or termination.
Example: A company could create a monthly report within Cost Explorer that shows the breakdown of costs by each department and service. This would enable the finance team to allocate costs accurately and the development teams to spot inefficient usage.
AWS Budgets
What it is: AWS Budgets allows you to set custom budgets to track your cost and usage from the simplest level (e.g., overall monthly costs) to more granular (e.g., costs associated with a particular service or tag). You can also set up alerts to notify you when your costs or usage exceed your budgeted amount.
Use Cases:
- Cost Control: Set up a budget to alert you when monthly spend for a development environment exceeds $500, preventing overspending.
- Usage Monitoring: Configure usage alerts to monitor the number of EC2 instance hours or GB of storage used.
- Performance Tracking: Compare your actual AWS spending and usage against your planned budget.
Example: An organization may implement a budget to monitor its S3 storage costs. AWS Budgets can send alerts when the forecasted spend for S3 is predicted to exceed the budget before the end of the month.
AWS Cost and Usage Report
What it is: The AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) provides comprehensive data about your costs and usage, enabling detailed analysis with the added benefit of integrating with AWS Athena for complex SQL queries, and QuickSight for visualizations.
Use Cases:
- Detailed Cost Breakdown: Access the most granular data about your costs and usage for deep analysis.
- Billing Optimization: Using CUR, identify specific areas where cost savings can be made – like pinpointing costly cross-region data transfers.
- Chargebacks & Showbacks: For businesses that need to charge back costs to different departments or clients, CUR provides the necessary level of detail.
Example: A company with multiple teams could set up the CUR to generate detailed reports with resource tags. These reports could be used to charge back the costs of specific AWS resources to the correct teams or projects.
Comparing the Tools
| Feature | AWS Cost Explorer | AWS Budgets | AWS Cost and Usage Report |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visualization | Charts and graphs | Budget performance cards | Requires external tools (e.g., QuickSight) |
| Alerting | Not available | Available | Not directly available |
| Data Granularity | High-level and filtered views | Budget-level monitoring | Highly detailed and configurable |
| Historical Data Access | Up to 12 months | Current period | Available from the point of activation |
| Forecasting | Available | Available for cost budgets | Not available |
| Customizability & Tags | Custom filter and grouping | Simple budget setup with tags | Highly customizable with detailed tags |
In summary, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Budgets, and the AWS Cost and Usage Report are powerful tools that serve different needs in cost management and optimization. AWS Certified Solutions Architects should be familiar with these tools, understanding not only their functionalities but also how to apply them in real-world scenarios to ensure effective cost oversight and optimization within their designed AWS architectures.
Answer the Questions in Comment Section
True or False: AWS Cost Explorer can be used to visualize your AWS spend over time.
- True
Correct Answer: True
AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that allows you to visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time.
Which AWS service allows you to set custom cost and usage budgets?
- A) AWS Budgets
- B) AWS Cost Explorer
- C) AWS Cost and Usage Report
Correct Answer: A) AWS Budgets
AWS Budgets gives you the ability to set custom budgeting rules for your AWS costs, alerting you when costs exceed your budget thresholds.
True or False: AWS Cost and Usage Report is the most granular and detailed tool for cost analysis in AWS.
- True
Correct Answer: True
AWS Cost and Usage Report delivers the most comprehensive set of AWS cost and usage data available, allowing for very detailed analysis.
What can you NOT do with AWS Cost Explorer?
- A) Forecast future AWS spend
- B) Analyze current cost trends
- C) Set spending alerts
Correct Answer: C) Set spending alerts
AWS Cost Explorer is used for analyzing and visualizing cost trends, not for setting spending alerts. For alerts, you would use AWS Budgets.
How often do AWS Budgets evaluate your usage and costs to alert you?
- A) Once a month
- B) Real-time
- C) At a frequency determined by the user
Correct Answer: C) At a frequency determined by the user
AWS Budgets can be configured to evaluate your usage and costs at a frequency that you define, such as daily, monthly, or quarterly.
True or False: The AWS Cost and Usage Report can only be delivered to an Amazon S3 bucket.
- True
Correct Answer: True
The AWS Cost and Usage Report is delivered to an Amazon S3 bucket that you designate, and it can then be analyzed using AWS or external tools.
Which tool would you use to view cost allocation tags and track costs back to specific projects or applications?
- A) AWS Budgets
- B) AWS Cost Explorer
- C) Amazon QuickSight
Correct Answer: B) AWS Cost Explorer
AWS Cost Explorer allows you to view cost allocation tags to understand and track costs back to specific projects, environments, or applications.
True or False: You can use AWS Budgets to automatically adjust service limits based on cost constraints.
- False
Correct Answer: False
AWS Budgets can alert you when you approach your defined cost thresholds, but it won’t automatically adjust service limits; manual intervention is required.
What is the minimum data granularity you can obtain with AWS Cost and Usage Reports?
- A) Hourly
- B) Daily
- C) Monthly
Correct Answer: A) Hourly
AWS Cost and Usage Reports provide the finest granularity at the hourly level, allowing detailed analysis of usage patterns.
True or False: AWS Cost Explorer is a free service provided by AWS.
- False
Correct Answer: False
While AWS Cost Explorer does offer a free tier, beyond that, there are charges for its usage, especially when accessing additional features or API calls.
AWS Cost and Usage Reports can be directly integrated with which of the following for advanced analytics?
- A) Amazon Athena
- B) Amazon Redshift
- C) Both A and B
Correct Answer: C) Both A and B
AWS Cost and Usage Reports can be integrated with Amazon Athena and Amazon Redshift, along with other business intelligence tools, for advanced cost and usage analytics.
Which statement is NOT true regarding AWS Budgets?
- A) You can set usage budgets based on EC2 instances hours
- B) AWS Budgets only allows you to view past cost data
- C) You can receive budget alerts via Amazon SNS or email
Correct Answer: B) AWS Budgets only allows you to view past cost data
AWS Budgets allows users not only to view past cost data but also to forecast future expenses and monitor current cost and usage in relation to set budgets. Alerts can be set up when cost forecasts exceed budgeted amounts.
Great post! I found AWS Cost Explorer useful for tracking my monthly spend.
Can anyone share their experience using AWS Budgets? How effective is it for keeping costs under control?
Thanks for sharing this information. Very helpful!
How detailed is the AWS Cost and Usage Report? Is it worth setting up?
This blog post really breaks down the tools well, thanks!
I set up AWS Budgets but still find unexpected charges. Any tips?
Appreciate the details on AWS tools. Very enlightening!
Not very impressed with Cost Explorer. It lacks some advanced features.