I've noticed our AWS bill has been rising steadily over the last few months, and I can't quite figure out why. While I've used Cost Explorer, it feels too high-level, making it hard to drill down into specific services and regions, and ultimately, I still don't have a clear picture of our expenses. We're using a mix of EC2, RDS, Lambda functions, and S3, along with data transfer costs that seem higher than expected. The infrastructure is spread across multiple accounts, and different teams often spin up resources without considering the cost implications. I've tried to improve tagging, but many older resources are untagged, and the delay in Cost Explorer means I often miss spikes in costs. I'm really looking for advice on how to gain proper visibility into these costs. Is it just about better tagging, or are there specific tools that can help? I need something that helps me understand what's costing us money so I can have informed discussions with the team about optimization.
3 Answers
Make tagging a mandatory requirement for your resources. If something isn't tagged, consider deleting it. Set a firm deadline for when tagging needs to be in place and enforce it after that. This is key for gaining visibility into your spending.
You can start by really utilizing the AWS billing console. It shows exactly what you're spending on each service. From there, it's about auditing your apps and designs to find areas where you can save money. It takes some digging but it's worth it!
There are lots of tools out there, but remember, if tags aren’t standardized or enforced, those tools won't provide much value. If you manage to get your Cost and Usage Reports (CUR) into Athena, you'll be able to query them, which makes it much easier to identify where your costs are coming from.
Exactly! Getting CUR reports into a queryable format is a smart move. It's more insight into your spending without relying solely on AWS tools.