BYTE the Cloud

Chris 0:00
All right, get ready to dive deep into AWS Cost Explorer. It's like the key to unlocking, well, the mysteries of your AWS bill. We'll uncover how to analyze costs, find those hidden savings, and yeah, even prep for those AWS certification exams. Super relevant, if you're, you know, a mid level cloud engineer like a lot of you are.

Kelly 0:19
You got it? Cost optimization is it's not just a nice thing to have anymore. It's mission critical, and cost Explorer is going to be your best friend.

Chris 0:28
So let's get right to it. What exactly is this Cost Explorer thing?

Kelly 0:32
Well, imagine you have like the super powered financial analyst, right? Whose only job is to figure out your AWS spending. That's Cost Explorer, in a nutshell, takes those raw numbers from your bill, turns them into something you can actually use. So

Chris 0:45
no more just staring at a giant spreadsheet, you actually get to see the pattern, like, maybe, I don't know, a cost spike when a new service launches exactly,

Kelly 0:52
you start to see trends, you know, maybe costs steadily going up as your application scales. And that's where the magic happens, right? You can drill down filter by service time period, even specific resources find the root cause of a cost jump, instead of just reacting to a big bill later.

Chris 1:10
So it's like proactive cost management, not just putting out fires.

Kelly 1:14
That's the goal. And you can even believe it or not, start predicting future costs, optimize your spending before it becomes a problem. Okay, hold

Chris 1:23
on, that's pretty powerful stuff. Can you give me, like, a real world example, something people can relate

Kelly 1:27
to? Sure. Let's say you're on a project, you got to choose the most cost effective storage option for like, a huge data set. Cost explorer. Can help you compare different services like S3 versus EBS versus Glacier, so you make the right choice right from the start,

Chris 1:43
I see so it's about being smart with your money, not just saving it, right?

Kelly 1:47
And let's say you got a reserved instance discount for your EC2 instances Cost Explorer can track how much you're actually using them, so you know you're getting your money's worth. Ah, making sure you're using those discounts effectively

Chris 1:59
Exactly. Or another one you need to convince your boss to invest in a new cloud based tool. You can use cost Explorer to build a business case show how the new tool will actually reduce costs elsewhere, data

Kelly 2:12
driven, decision making. Love it so cost Explorer is sounding pretty amazing, but how does it actually work? What are the features that make it so powerful?

Chris 2:22
Okay, so one of the basics, but it's really important, is filtering and grouping data. You can break down your costs, look at them by service, time period, tags, you name it, so you

Kelly 2:31
can really get granular, see where each dollar is going. Yeah. Then there's forecasting,

Chris 2:35
which we touched on earlier. Yeah. It uses machine learning, actually, to predict future costs based on your past spending patterns.

Kelly 2:42
So no more budget surprises. You can actually plan ahead. That's huge, right?

Chris 2:46
And then, for the you know, the real optimization pros out there, there are features like reserved instance reports. They show you how efficiently you're using your RIS and it can even suggest savings plans. This is starting to sound like, I don't know, like a Swiss Army knife of cost management tools,

Kelly 3:02
huh? It kind of is, but like any tool, it has its its limitations. Okay? So what should we watch out for?

Chris 3:10
What are the limitations? Well, one thing is,

Kelly 3:13
the data is not real time. There's like a 24 hour delay. So if you need you know up to the minute info, you might need other tools along with Cost Explorer,

Chris 3:21
got it so more of a big picture tool, not for like, minute by minute monitoring, right?

Kelly 3:26
And it's powerful, but there's definitely a learning curve, especially for beginners. The interface can be, well, it can be a bit much, if you're not used to all the AWS lingo, but

Chris 3:36
a that's why we're here, to break it all down exactly. And

Kelly 3:39
honestly, once you get past that initial learning curve, the benefits totally outweigh the challenges.

Chris 3:45
Okay, so how does this all fit in? How does cost explore work with all the other AWS services? Oh,

Kelly 3:50
it integrates really well. Works with things like CloudWatch, for example, you can actually see if, like, a performance bottleneck is causing higher costs.

Chris 3:59
Ah, so you can correlate those two things. Interesting, yeah,

Kelly 4:03
and it works with AWS budgets, which, like we said, can set up alerts and keep your spending in

Chris 4:07
check. All right, so we've talked about how Cost Explorer works in the real world, but now let's get into some of the nitty gritty details, you know, stuff that'll really help you master this tool, especially if you're thinking about those AWS certification exams. Yeah, those exams can be tough, exactly. So are you ready for some exam style questions? See how you do hit me with them. Okay, first one, imagine you're analyzing cost trends, but for a specific department, and they've tagged all their resources with DevOps. Which Cost Explorer feature would you use to zero in on just their costs?

Kelly 4:40
Okay, so we want to isolate those DevOps costs. In that case, I'd go with grouping by tag. You

Chris 4:45
got it. Grouping by tag lets you create a custom view just for the costs associated with that tag. It's like a personalized Cost Report for that department. Okay, next one you're working on a new application deployment, you need to figure out the AWS cost. Costs, but for the next quarter, and of course, you have to consider past spending and any changes in how much you'll use the resources. What Cost Explorer feature comes to mind?

Kelly 5:09
Ooh, predicting the future. I definitely use the cost forecast feature for that

Chris 5:13
right on. Cost forecast is like your crystal ball, but for cloud costs, yeah, it uses all that past spending data plus machine learning, to make a pretty good projection.

Kelly 5:23
And the best part is you can adjust the forecast if you know things are gonna change, like maybe more users or a different storage setup. Exactly.

Chris 5:29
Okay, ready for a tougher one? Bring it on. All right. You're going through your company's AWS bill and whoa, storage costs have skyrocketed in the past month. You start thinking, maybe it's all those unused EBS volumes. So which Cost Explorer filter would you use to just focus on EBS costs, to

Kelly 5:47
isolate just the EBS costs? I'd use the service filter and specifically select Amazon elastic block store EBS. You

Chris 5:56
nailed it that way. You only see EBS costs, and you can quickly figure out if those unused volumes are the culprit. Okay, let's talk reserved instances. Or our eyes, your company loves using RIS to save money on EC2, but you need to make sure you're getting the most out of them, not wasting any which Cost Explorer report should you

Kelly 6:16
check to check on ri usage, the Ri utilization report for sure that'll show you if they're fully utilized, partially or not at all.

Chris 6:24
Yep, it's like a health check for your RIS making sure they're earning their keep. Okay, time for a multi account scenario, your company's got different AWS accounts for like, each department, each project, you need to understand the big picture of costs across all of them. What's your go to and cost explore for that,

Kelly 6:40
I would definitely use the Linked Accounts feature. It lets you see everything in one place, all those linked accounts. It's

Chris 6:45
exactly like a master dashboard for your whole cloud setup. Super helpful. All right, one more question, to really test your knowledge, you got to create a report, really detailed, one showing monthly AWS costs for a project called, we'll call it project alpha, for the entire past year, and broken down by each AWS service. Which Cost Explorer feature would you use for this?

Kelly 7:06
For a super detailed custom report like that, I would go with the cost and usage report, Bullseye the cost

Chris 7:12
and usage report, or C, u, r, gives you the most granular level of detail. You can customize it however you need for time periods, tags, service breakdowns, super powerful. Okay, let's step away from the exam questions for a minute and think about some real world situations. Let's say you have to migrate a massive data set from your company's own data center to AWS. This data is like mission critical, used for all your analytics and reports, and it has to be transferred securely. Of course, what AWS service comes to mind for a job like that,

Kelly 7:43
for a big data migration like that, where security is so important, I'd probably choose AWS datasync. Solid

Chris 7:49
choice. Datasync is built for online data transfers, even huge datasets, plus it's secure and really fast. Okay, let's talk about security best practices always important in AWS, your company's super strict about security. Everyone has to use multi factor authentication or MFA to access AWS. How do you make sure MFA is enforced for everyone using Cost Explorer?

Kelly 8:13
That's all handled through AWS IAM, you can set up MFA for all your users there, including the ones who access Cost Explorer. Another layer of security, right? Like

Chris 8:22
a security guard for your AWS account. Okay? Last scenario for this section, you need a system, kind of like an early warning system, that'll automatically tell you if your monthly AWS costs go over a certain limit, you know, so you can catch any potential over spending before it gets out of hand. What service would you use for

Kelly 8:38
that? For that, AWS budgets is the perfect tool. You can set up custom budgets, and it'll alert you if you go over,

Chris 8:43
yeah, like a budget tracker, but for your cloud spending. So we've covered a lot here, exam prep, real world scenarios, and I think you're really getting the hang of Cost Explorer, definitely

Kelly 8:53
feeling more confident about it, me too.

Chris 8:55
But there's one more thing about Cost Explorer that we have to talk about. It's not just about saving money or passing exams, it's about using this data to to make smarter business decisions, really strategic ones. You

Kelly 9:08
know, you're absolutely right. We've been in the weeds a bit, but Cost Explorer, it's not just technical. It can really drive business strategy.

Chris 9:15
Totally. The data is all there. You can see which projects are actually like paying off, which teams are using resources? Well, maybe even find places to free up some budget for new stuff.

Kelly 9:25
Yeah, it's almost like a like a financial advisor, but for your Cloud helps you make sure your spending aligns with, you know, the big picture business goals. Let's say you're

Chris 9:35
thinking about migrating an old application to the Cloud. You could use cost Explorer to compare like, What's it cost to run it on premises versus in AWS? Factor in the compute, storage, all that, and

Kelly 9:45
even project those costs out using the forecasting features, you'd have a really strong case for the migration. Or,

Chris 9:51
I don't know you're launching a new product cost explore. Can track all the costs side of that launch. See your ROI make decisions about pricing, how to use Re. Resources. You

Kelly 10:00
can even find places where you might be like, overspending on stuff that's not really moving the needle.

Chris 10:05
It's all about using the data making smart choices. And that goes for everyone, developers, architects, finance people, even the bosses. And the

Kelly 10:13
great thing is, anyone can use it. You don't have to be, you know, a financial whiz to understand what cost Explorer is telling you,

Chris 10:19
right? It's meant to be easy to use, even if you're not super technical. So whether you're a cloud expert or just starting out Cost Explorer, I mean, it's essential. And

Kelly 10:29
don't forget, AWS is always adding new stuff, new features. Keep learning, keep exploring what it can do

Chris 10:34
absolutely so to sum it all up, you want to optimize your cloud spending, get insights into your AWS usage and make those smart business decisions. Cost explore is the tool.

Kelly 10:46
Master it, and you'll be the cost management guru everyone comes to

Chris 10:49
and hey, if you find some cool, creative way to use cost explore, let us know. We'd love to hear about it until next time. Keep exploring AWS, keep learning and keep diving deep with us.