Sometime during last year, we published a blog on how to analyze AWS costs with our efficient Advanced Cost Explorer. That blog spoke about the main features offered by Botmetric Advanced Cost Explorer. It talked about how it provides a clear view of AWS cloud spending patterns across various dimensions such as linked accounts, cloud services, and RI purchases. It even spoke about how users can use various filters and time range feature to get the actual cost break-down.
From the time we published that blog on Advanced Cost Explorer till date, we have come a long way and have been adding several enhancements to our dashboard. We made few enhancements to our Advanced Cost Explorer too. These features collectively today help many customers from various verticals with several cost optimization benefits.
In this post, we will walk you through the top eight Botmetric Advanced Cost Explorer features you can use to optimize AWS spend.
Complete overview of the actual spend data with filters
AWS cloud is a very dynamic ecosystem of solutions and services. As an AWS user, you may want to get a complete picture of your actual cloud spend or cost-breakdown by particular attribute in the shortest time possible.
The Advanced Cost Explorer, with its easy-to-use tabbed UI, provides you with a detailed graphical view of the actual spend data across various dimensions or single attributes. Some of these attributes, also called as Filters, include linked accounts, cloud services, RI purchases, tags, Availability Zones (AZs), purchase options, API operations, time range, blended cost, incurred credits if any, and incurred subscription costs if any.
Custom-made groups of filters
Apart from getting a complete picture of the actual spend, you may want to drill down on your historical spend data for only specific few filters. For instance, you may want to view running instance API’s cost for EC2 in a particular linked account for last three months. In such cases, Botmetric’s Advanced Cost Explorer’s custom-made group of filters come in very handy.
You can group the filters of your choice and get a cost break-down only for that group rather than considering all the attributes. Additionally, you can get hourly/daily/monthly spend data for a particular grouped filter too.
With such a feature in place, you can drill. down the historical spend data at a very granular level. Additionally, Botmetric’s easy-to-use UI helps you quickly filter the data based on time range/specified period, thereby avoiding spurious results. Finally, this helps you get a clarity on your AWS spend in the shortest possible time.
An easy-to-use drop down menu to switch between payer accounts
In a large enterprise setup, there are chances that a single entity might be handling several payer accounts. In such scenarios, getting the actual spend data manually for various payer accounts is very cumbersome. Catering to this need, we incorporated a feature where a user can select a payer account with an easy-to-use drop down menu. Such is the beauty of Botmetric.
Show blended costs [New Feature]
For a large enterprise setup, where there are several payer accounts, they will need cost breakdown not only by filters like linked accounts and tags, but would also require cost break-down view that includes blended costs too. These blended costs are unified cost that the bill-payer pays for a given service. Here the cost is blended at the payer account level. This feature helps enterprises analyze their AWS spend in a more diligent way.
Exclude One Time subscription cost [New Feature]
When you purchase a Reserved Instance (RI) from AWS, you pay an up-front fee in exchange for a lower rate for using that instance. By default, the AWS Cost Explorer includes subscription charges when it calculates your AWS costs. These subscription costs can result in spikes for the days or months when you made your purchases. So by excluding subscription, you can see your spend excluding these subscription costs.
Downloadable reports in multiple formats and different graphical representations
To provide a seamless experience to our users, Botmetric has provided the capability to download reports in multiple formats as well as in different graphical representations. With the help of this feature you can download reports in multiple formats of .jpeg, .png, .pdf, and .svg. as per your choice and convenience. Additionally, you can switch between various graphical representations from bar graphs to line graphs.
Export spend data in CSV format
In few cases, you may want to ingest the spend data in one of your internal systems for further processing. To cater to this need, Botmetric allows you to export spend data in CSV/table format.
Include / Exclude AWS Credits
AWS, in few cases, provides credits to enterprises under varous programs. Under such payer accounts, the bill amount also includes these credit along with other costs, thereby obscuring the actual AWS spend. However with Botmetric’s Advanced Cost Explorer, one can easily exclude these credits and can see their actual spend details.
The Bottom Line: Analyze AWS Spend Like a Pro with Advanced Cost Explorer
With each passing day, we have ensured that our users get the best of our tools. To this end, we have added many enhancements.
The AWS Cost Explorer, a free AWS cost monitoring tool, also provides detailed AWS cloud spend data and analytics. Even though this tool has all-encompassing features, Botmetric takes it a notch higher with additional features in its Advanced Cost Explorer. These features include the capability to switch between payer accounts, capability to export spend data as CSV, download reports in multiple formats, the capability to include blended costs, excluding RI purchase subscription costs, and more.
Sign-up for a 14-day trial with Botmetric and get a first-hand experience of our Advanced Cost Explorer. We promise you, you will be amazed by the results!
