I've been staring at AWS Cost Explorer, frustrated by the "data is 24 to 48 hours delayed" message. It's hard to accept that while AWS knows my current spending, I have to wait for two days to see it. By the time I find out that something expensive has happened, I've already incurred those costs multiple times. I've thought about building a tool that polls the cost API more frequently, but I'm worried I'd spend more time maintaining it than I'd save by catching spikes early. Is this issue something I can actually solve, or should I just resign myself to being behind on tracking my infrastructure costs?
1 Answer
Honestly, it's probably not worth the effort to build your own tool. Just use the Cost and Usage Reports (CUR) updated at least once every 24 hours and move on. It’s simple and effective for most use cases.
A good tip is to take the average cost over a week, divide it by 7 to get your daily rate, and then break it down into a price per second. This way, you can present a seemingly real-time cost to management without over-complicating things.