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AWS Cost Explorer

AWS Cost Explorer - is a web-based tool provided by Amazon Web Services designed to analyze and visualize your AWS cloud resource costs. It helps organizations understand, control, and optimize their expenses by offering detailed reports and graphs. With this tool, you can track historical spending, forecast future costs, and identify ways to reduce expenses.

Key definitions for AWS Cost Explorer:

  • Cost Visualization

    Interactive charts and graphs allow for easy analysis of expenses over different time periods.

  • Filtering and Grouping

    Ability to filter data by services, regions, tags, accounts, and other parameters.

  • Cost Forecasting

    Provides spending forecasts based on historical data to aid in budget planning.

  • Savings Plans and Reserved Instances Analysis

    Helps assess the effectiveness of these options and identify savings opportunities.

  • Cost Anomaly Detection

    Automatically detects anomalies in spending and notifies you.

  • Data Export

    Option to export reports in CSV format for further analysis.

  • Custom Reports

    Create and save custom reports tailored to your specific business needs, allowing for quick access to frequently used cost views without reapplying filters and groupings each time.

  • Integration with AWS Trusted Advisor

    Use insights from Trusted Advisor in conjunction with Cost Explorer to identify cost optimization opportunities related to service limits and best practices.

  • Dashboard Customization

    Personalize your Cost Explorer dashboard with widgets and shortcuts to frequently accessed reports and views.

  • Data Granularity Selection

    Choose between daily or monthly granularity for your reports to balance detail with readability.

  • Scheduled Reports

    Set up regular delivery of cost and usage reports to stakeholders via email, ensuring that everyone stays informed about spending trends.

Service integrates with:

Usage use cases

  • Cost Optimization.

    Identifying high-cost services or resources and finding ways to reduce expenses.

  • Budget Forecasting.

    Planning future spending based on historical data and forecasts.

  • Efficiency Analysis.

    Evaluating the effectiveness of using Savings Plans and Reserved Instances.

  • Anomaly Detection.

    Quickly responding to unplanned expenses or abnormal changes.

  • Cost Allocation.

    Analyzing expenses among different projects, teams, or departments using tags.

  • Reporting.

    Generating reports for management or stakeholders.

FAQ for AWS Cost Explorer

  • What is AWS Cost Explorer?

    Is a web-based tool provided by Amazon Web Services designed to analyze and visualize your AWS cloud resource costs. It helps organizations understand, control, and optimize their expenses by offering detailed reports and graphs.

  • Is AWS Cost Explorer a free service?

    Yes, the core functionality of AWS Cost Explorer is available at no additional cost. However, using some advanced features, such as Cost Anomaly Detection, may incur additional charges.

  • How often is the data in AWS Cost Explorer updated?

    The data is updated daily, usually with a delay of 8 to 24 hours.

  • Can expenses be analyzed using custom tags?

    Yes, AWS Cost Explorer supports filtering and grouping data by custom tags.

  • How long are historical data retained in AWS Cost Explorer?

    You can view historical data for the past 12 months, which helps analyze long-term trends.

  • Can I set up alerts for budget overruns in AWS Cost Explorer?

    Not directly. To set up budget alerts, you should use AWS Budgets, which integrates with Cost Explorer.

  • What is the difference between AWS Budget and Сost Explorer?

    AWS Cost Explorer is a tool for analyzing and visualizing your AWS costs and usage over time, helping you understand where and how you're spending. AWS Budgets allows you to set custom cost and usage budgets and alerts you when your actual or forecasted spending exceeds your defined thresholds. In essence, Cost Explorer helps you analyze and understand your spending patterns, while AWS Budgets helps you monitor and control your spending by setting limits and receiving notifications.

  • What is the difference between AWS Trusted Advisor and Сost Explorer?

    AWS Cost Explorer is a tool designed specifically for analyzing and visualizing your AWS costs and usage over time, helping you understand spending patterns and identify opportunities for cost optimization. AWS Trusted Advisor, on the other hand, provides real-time recommendations to optimize your AWS infrastructure across multiple dimensions—including cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits. In essence, Cost Explorer focuses solely on cost analysis, while Trusted Advisor offers a broader range of best practice recommendations to enhance overall AWS resource utilization and efficiency.

  • What is the difference between Сost explorer and Pricing Calculator?

    In essence, AWS Cost Explorer helps you analyze historical and current spending to manage and optimize existing costs, while AWS Pricing Calculator assists you in forecasting future costs to plan and budget for upcoming AWS deployments.