Visualize in Cost Explorer

Overview

AWS Cost Categories in AWS Cost Explorer provide a flexible way to categorize and analyze your AWS costs. With Cost Categories, you can group your AWS costs into categories that make sense for your organization, such as by department, team, or AWS service. Creating a report with visualization using AWS Cost Categories enables you to gain better visibility into your costs, forecast costs for the next 12 months, and make informed decisions about your AWS usage.

For more information about controlling access for AWS Cost Explorer, see AWS Cost Management policy.

Note - You must have Cost Explorer enabled for this account to allow billing data access. Once Cost Explorer is enabled, it can take up to 24 hours for changes to take effect.

Console:

  1. Log into Management Account created in AWS Account Setup.

  2. Search for cost explorer in AWS console, choose AWS Cost Explorer. Section5 CostExplorer

  3. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Cost Explorer. Section5 NavigateCostExplorer

  4. In Report parameters, click on Date Range selected value under Time. Select Month to Date from Past option and click on Apply. Section5 SelectDateRange

  5. Under Group by, select Cost category as Dimension and cost by team as Cost category. Section5 GroupByCostCategoryDimensionByTeam

  6. Under Filters, select cost by team as Cost category. Section5 FilterCostCategoryAsCostByTeam

  7. Click on the Excludes radio button under cost by team, select No cost category: cost by team and click on Apply. Section5 ExcludeNoCostCategoryAsCostByTeam

  8. Now you will be able to visualize the cost for teams Alpha and Beta. Click on Save to report library to view it later. Section5 VisualizeTeamsCosts

  9. Give the name as cost report by teams and click on save report. We have created a cost report to analyze costs at team level. Section5 CreateTeamsReport

  10. Now you will create another cost report at department level using AWS Cost Categories. Repeat step-3 and step-4 for creating cost by department report.

  11. Under Group by, select Cost Category as Dimension and cost by department as Cost category. Section5 GroupByCostCategoryDimensionByDept

  12. Under Filter, select cost by department as Cost Category. Section5 FilterCostCategoryAsCostByDept

  13. Click on the Excludes radio button under cost by department and select No cost category: cost by department. Click on Apply. Section5 ExcludeNoCostCategoryAsCostByDept

  14. Now you will be able to visualize the cost for digital department. Click on Save to report library to view it later. Section5 VisualizeDeptCosts

  15. Give the name as cost report by department and click on Save report. We have created a cost report to analyze costs at department level. Section5 CreateDeptReport

  16. Now you will create the last report at service the level to analyze which AWS services Alpha team is using. Repeat step-3 and step-4 for creating cost by Service report for team Alpha.

  17. Under Group by, select Service as Dimension. Section5 GroupByDimensionAsService

  18. Under Filter, select TeamName from Tag drop-down list. Section5 FilterTeamNameAsTag

  19. Under TeamName, select Alpha. Section5 FilterTeamAlpha

  20. Now you will be able to visualize the cost for Services created by team Alpha. Click on Save to report library to view it later. Section5 VisualizeTeamsAlphaCosts

  21. Give the name as cost report by service for team alpha and click on Save report. Section5 CreateAlphaTeamsReport

  22. At the end of this section you will be able to see three cost reports under Reports section by the names cost report by teams, cost report by department and cost report by team alpha. Section5 ValidateCostReports

  23. Now we have generated three reports at department, team, and service level so that you could drill down into specific areas of spending.

Congratulations!

You have completed this section of the lab. In this section you created two cost reports using cost categories as the filter using AWS Cost Explorer service.

Click on Next Step to continue to the next section.