4.4 AWS Cost Management and Monitoring Tools
Key Takeaways
- AWS Cost Explorer visualizes costs over time, identifies trends, and provides RI/Savings Plan purchase recommendations.
- AWS Budgets creates custom budgets with alerts via SNS/email when actual or forecasted costs exceed thresholds.
- AWS Compute Optimizer uses ML to recommend right-sized EC2, EBS, Lambda, and Fargate configurations based on utilization data.
- AWS Cost Anomaly Detection uses ML to detect unusual spending patterns and alert you before costs spiral.
- AWS Trusted Advisor checks for underutilized resources, idle load balancers, and other cost optimization opportunities (full checks require Business or Enterprise Support).
AWS Cost Management and Monitoring Tools
Quick Answer: Cost Explorer = visualize and forecast costs. Budgets = set spending limits with alerts. Compute Optimizer = ML-based right-sizing. Cost Anomaly Detection = ML-based unusual spend alerts. Trusted Advisor = checks for optimization across cost, performance, security, and fault tolerance.
AWS Cost Explorer
Cost Explorer provides a visual interface to analyze and manage AWS costs and usage over time.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Cost visualization | View costs by service, account, tag, Region, etc. |
| Forecasting | 12-month cost forecast based on historical data |
| RI recommendations | Suggests optimal Reserved Instance purchases |
| Savings Plan recommendations | Suggests optimal Savings Plan commitments |
| Custom reports | Save filtered views for recurring analysis |
| Granularity | Monthly, daily, or hourly (hourly requires opt-in) |
| Cost allocation tags | Group costs by business unit, project, environment |
Cost Allocation Tags
Tags let you categorize and track costs:
| Tag Type | Who Creates | Example |
|---|---|---|
| AWS-generated | AWS (opt-in) | aws:createdBy |
| User-defined | You | Environment:Production, Project:WebApp, Team:Engineering |
On the Exam: "Track costs per department" → Use cost allocation tags + Cost Explorer. "Forecast costs for next quarter" → Cost Explorer forecasting.
AWS Budgets
AWS Budgets lets you set custom cost, usage, RI utilization, and savings plan utilization budgets.
| Budget Type | Tracks |
|---|---|
| Cost budget | Actual and forecasted spending against a target |
| Usage budget | Service usage against a target (e.g., EC2 hours) |
| RI utilization | Are your Reserved Instances being used? |
| RI coverage | What percentage of running hours are covered by RIs? |
| Savings Plans utilization | Are your Savings Plans being used? |
| Savings Plans coverage | What percentage is covered by Savings Plans? |
Budget Alerts
| Alert Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Actual | Triggers when actual cost exceeds threshold |
| Forecasted | Triggers when forecasted cost will exceed threshold |
| Actions | Automatically apply SCPs, stop EC2 instances, or apply IAM policies |
AWS Compute Optimizer
Compute Optimizer uses machine learning to analyze resource utilization and provide right-sizing recommendations.
| Resource | Recommendations |
|---|---|
| EC2 instances | Instance type and size |
| Auto Scaling groups | Instance type and size |
| EBS volumes | Volume type and size |
| Lambda functions | Memory size |
| ECS on Fargate | CPU and memory |
AWS Cost Anomaly Detection
Cost Anomaly Detection uses ML to monitor spending patterns and detect unusual spikes.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| ML-based | Learns your normal spending patterns |
| Monitors | AWS services, accounts, cost allocation tags, cost categories |
| Alerts | SNS notifications with root cause analysis |
| No threshold needed | Automatically detects anomalies (no manual threshold setup) |
AWS Trusted Advisor
Trusted Advisor provides best practice recommendations across five categories:
| Category | Example Checks |
|---|---|
| Cost Optimization | Underutilized EC2, idle ELBs, unused EBS volumes, unattached Elastic IPs |
| Performance | High-utilization EC2, CloudFront optimization |
| Security | Open security groups, IAM use, MFA on root |
| Fault Tolerance | Multi-AZ RDS, S3 bucket versioning, Route 53 health checks |
| Service Limits | Approaching service quotas |
Trusted Advisor Tiers
| Tier | Available Checks | Support Plan Required |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | 7 core checks (S3 bucket permissions, security groups, IAM, MFA, EBS snapshots, RDS snapshots, service limits) | Basic (free) |
| Full | All 100+ checks | Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, or Enterprise |
Choosing the Right Tool
| Need | Tool |
|---|---|
| "Show me where I am spending money" | Cost Explorer |
| "Alert me when spending exceeds $1,000" | AWS Budgets |
| "Am I using the right instance size?" | Compute Optimizer |
| "Detect unexpected spending spikes" | Cost Anomaly Detection |
| "Find underutilized resources" | Trusted Advisor |
| "Track costs by business unit" | Cost allocation tags + Cost Explorer |
| "Get RI purchase recommendations" | Cost Explorer (RI recommendations) |
A finance team wants to receive an alert when their monthly AWS bill is forecasted to exceed their quarterly budget. Which service should they use?
Which AWS tool uses machine learning to provide right-sizing recommendations for EC2 instances based on actual utilization data?
Which TWO services help identify underutilized or idle AWS resources? (Select TWO)
Select all that apply
A company discovers that their AWS bill has increased 40% unexpectedly over the past week. Which service would have PROACTIVELY alerted them about this anomaly?
A company wants to track AWS costs per department (Engineering, Marketing, Sales). What should they implement?
Which AWS Trusted Advisor check is available on the Basic (free) support plan?