Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a Cost Explorer tool designed to help you analyze and visualize your AWS costs and usage. With Cost Explorer, you can generate cost and usage reports, RI (Reserved Instances) reports, and utilize a main graph to delve into your spending and usage patterns.
This tool allows you to view up to 12 months of data, receive RI purchasing recommendations, and forecast expenses for the next 12 months. Cost Explorer enables you to pinpoint areas that need further investigation and gain valuable insights into your costs. Additionally, you can set up preconfigured views to display overall cost trends, helping you customize views to suit your specific needs.
You can use the Cost Explorer user interface to view your usage and costs for free, while the Cost Explorer API allows programmatic access to your data at a cost of $0.01 per paginated request. Once enabled, Cost Explorer cannot be disabled.
Starting with AWS Cost Explorer
Log into the AWS Management Console:
Access the Billing and Cost Management console via this link. Note that you cannot enable Cost Explorer through the API.
Enable Cost Explorer:
From the navigation pane, select Cost Explorer.
On the "Welcome to Cost Explorer" page, choose "Launch Cost Explorer."
Data Collection and Estimates:
Once enabled, AWS will gather cost details for the previous 12 months and the current month, and estimate costs for the next 12 months.
Current month data is available within approximately 24 hours, while the rest may take several days. Cost data is updated at least every 24 hours.
Viewing Cost Data:
On the overview dashboard, you can view forecasted costs, monthly trends, and month-to-date expenditure.
Cost Explorer provides a summary of the previous and current months to help you determine if your cost and usage patterns align with your expectations.
Image Source: AWS
Monthly Trends and Anomalies:
The Monthly Trends section highlights unusual usage based on previous months.
Independent Analysis:
To analyze costs and usage independently, select Cost Explorer and then Costs and Usage from the left navigation pane.
This opens the data exploration surface where you can view monthly costs by service, tracking up to the previous six months of AWS usage in detail.
Image Source: AWS
Navigating Your Data with Cost Explorer
Head over to the Cost Explorer dashboard to review your estimated monthly costs to date, daily cost graph, projected monthly expenses, key cost trends, and a history of recently viewed reports.
Cost Overview
On the Cost Explorer page, you'll find detailed information about your monthly expenditures:
Month-to-Date Costs: Compare your predicted and actual spending for the current month, and contrast it with the same period from the previous month.
Forecasted Month-End Costs: Get an estimate of your total costs for the month, and compare this forecast with your actual costs from last month. Note that these estimates do not account for refunds.
Unblended Monthly and Daily Costs: View a graph of your up-to-date unblended daily expenses. Use the Explore costs option to adjust parameters and filters for the chart.
Cost Trends
The “This Month Trends” section in Cost Explorer highlights your primary cost trends. Select View all trends to see an overview of your cost patterns.
By selecting a trend, you can access a detailed report with a Cost Explorer chart, showing the costs that contributed to that trend. This can help you identify if costs for specific services have increased.
Amortized RI Costs
Review the costs of your Reserved Instance (RI) purchases over the reservation period. AWS calculates these amortized costs by using the unblended recurring and upfront reservation costs to determine the effective rate for relevant instances. The daily report in Cost Explorer details the unused portions of your reservation costs from the purchase date or the start of the month.
Understanding Your Reservations with Cost Explorer
Managing AWS involves balancing your use of Reserved Instances (RIs) and On-Demand Instances. Cost Explorer provides tools to help you understand and optimize your RI costs, offering insights that can help you minimize expenses.
Cost Explorer gives you an up-to-date overview of your reservations, detailing RI coverage and utilization. It also provides recommendations on RIs that could potentially reduce your costs.
Leveraging RI Reports
In the Cost Explorer console, you can access the RI reports page to see the number of reservations you have, which reservations will expire this month, and the savings from using RIs compared to On-Demand Instances. The tool breaks down your savings and reservations by service and provides recommendations for cost savings, comparing On-Demand usage costs to potential RI costs.
Cost Explorer follows this process to offer RI usage recommendations:
Identifies On-Demand Instance utilization for a service over a specific period.
Categorizes your utilization to qualify for an RI.
Tests different RI combinations within each usage category.
Determines the optimal number of each RI type to purchase for maximum savings.
Managing Alerts for Reservation Expiration
Cost Explorer allows you to track your reservations and set up alerts for their expiration. You can configure email alerts for one week, one month, or two months before the reservation expiration date. Up to ten recipients can receive these notifications.
To activate reservation expiration alerts:
Open the AWS Management Console and navigate to AWS Cost Management.
Go to the Overview page under Reservations.
Select "Manage alerts" in the Reservation expiring section.
Choose the checkboxes for the desired alert times.
Enter the email addresses of the recipients (up to ten).
Click Save.
Cost Optimization with FixMyClouds
While AWS Cost Explorer is an invaluable tool for analyzing and forecasting your cloud expenses, integrating FixMyClouds’ scheduling features can take your cost optimization efforts to the next level.
FixMyClouds’ ability to schedule EC2 instances to shut down during non-business hours can lead to significant savings. By automating the shutdown and startup of instances, you ensure that you are only paying for resources when they are actively needed. For example, you can set your instances to power down after work hours and restart them before business begins, avoiding costs for idle resources overnight and on weekends.
Here’s how scheduling with FixMyClouds can enhance your cost savings:
Automatic Instance Management: Configure FixMyClouds to automatically turn off your instances outside of business hours and turn them back on when needed. This eliminates unnecessary expenses for instances that are not in use, aligning your costs with actual business needs.
Customizable Schedules: Tailor your instance schedules to match your operational requirements. Whether you need to adjust for different time zones or specific peak usage times, FixMyClouds provides the flexibility to optimize your cloud costs effectively.
Reduced Unnecessary Costs: By scheduling instances to shut down during periods of inactivity, you prevent paying for unused resources. This proactive approach can significantly lower your AWS bill.
Seamless Integration with Cost Explorer: Combining FixMyClouds with AWS Cost Explorer offers a comprehensive cost management strategy. While Cost Explorer provides detailed insights into your spending, FixMyClouds ensures that your cost-saving measures are actively applied, optimizing your overall cloud expenditure.
Ease of Use: FixMyClouds’ user-friendly interface makes setting up and managing instance schedules straightforward. You can quickly implement and monitor your cost-saving strategies without hassle.
Incorporating FixMyClouds’ scheduling feature into your AWS management practices can lead to substantial cost reductions. By ensuring that your instances are only running when necessary, you can optimize your cloud spending and maximize your savings. Together with AWS Cost Explorer, FixMyClouds offers a robust approach to managing and reducing your AWS costs effectively.
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