AWS Cost Explorer Overview

AWS Cost Explorer is a vital tool for managing AWS costs and usage, offering a range of features to help users visualize, understand, and optimize their AWS expenses. It's essential for anyone preparing for AWS exams or looking to manage AWS budgets more effectively.

Key Features

• Visualization and Management: Provides dashboards and diagrams for analyzing AWS costs and usage over time.
• Custom Reports: Enables the creation of custom reports for detailed analysis of cost and usage data.
• Granularity: Offers various levels of granularity, including total cost and usage across all accounts, as well as monthly, hourly, and resource-level details.
• Cost Savings: Assists in choosing optimal Savings Plans to reduce expenses.
• Forecasting: Allows for up to 12 months of usage forecasting based on past data, aiding in cost planning.

Real-World Applications

• Optimizing Costs: By analyzing the cost of different AWS services, especially at the instance level, users can identify opportunities to reduce expenses by optimizing resource utilization and selecting the right instance sizes.
• Savings Plans: Cost Explorer suggests Savings Plans as an alternative to Reserved Instances, providing recommendations based on usage to further lower costs.
• Forecasting and Planning: The tool forecasts future usage and costs, offering insights for budget planning with a confidence interval.

Example: Monthly Cost by AWS Service

• Visualization of costs associated with different AWS services.
• Identification of expensive resources or services for cost optimization.
• Analysis of instance usage to ensure efficient and cost-effective deployment.

Hourly and Resource Level Analysis

• Detailed breakdown of costs at the hourly level and by individual resource.
• Enables precise tracking of cost fluctuations and identification of high-cost periods or resources.

Savings Plan Recommendations