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Optimizing Cloud Expenses

Optimizing Cloud Expenses: Best Practices to Reduce Costs

In today’s cloud-driven landscape, understanding AWS cost monitoring is crucial for businesses looking to optimize their cloud investments. AWS cost reports and AWS usage reports play a vital role in providing detailed insights into your cloud spending. Regular AWS audits ensure transparency, allowing companies to uncover inefficiencies and implement effective AWS cost-monitoring strategies. By using AWS cost and usage reports for budgeting, businesses can better forecast expenses and control their AWS billing and optimizing cloud expenses.

Leveraging AWS Usage Reports

While AWS cost reports give you an overview of spending, AWS usage reports focus on the quantity and type of resources being used. These reports are essential for understanding how your resources are being consumed and whether you are using them efficiently.

With AWS usage reports, you can:

Track which services and resources are being used the most.
Identify underutilized resources that could be downsized or eliminated to save costs.
Understand the impact of scaling operations up or down on your overall budget.

Using these reports for budgeting can help businesses predict future spending and optimize current usage. This makes using AWS cost and usage reports for budgeting a powerful tool for managing your cloud cost management.

To view your AWS cost and usage reports, log in to the AWS Management Console and ensure you have the necessary permissions to access billing and cost management features.

On the left side of the AWS billing and cost management UI, select AWS Cost Explorer.

In the AWS cost and explorer dashboard, you will find your AWS cost and usage report.

When you scroll down, you can be able to see your AWS cost usage breakdown. Where you can download the CSV report and get to know more details about your AWS spending.

Below is a look at a CSV report from my downloads.

The Role of AWS Audits

To ensure accurate AWS billing and spending management, it is critical to conduct regular AWS audits. These audits help identify any inconsistencies or potential areas for cost savings. By auditing your AWS cost and usage reports, you can ensure that your actual resource usage aligns with your budget and business objectives.

Conducting regular AWS audits includes:

Verifying that all resources are being used as intended.
Ensuring that no unnecessary resources are being provisioned.
Identifying potential areas for cost optimization.

Knowing how to audit AWS cost and usage reports is a crucial part of maintaining cloud cost control and optimizing cloud expenses. Regular audits also ensure compliance with internal financial policies and provide a level of accountability in cloud resource management.

Best Practices for AWS Cost Audits

Set a regular audit schedule: Conduct audits on a weekly or monthly basis to catch any overspending or inefficiencies early.

Use automation tools: AWS provides automated tools like AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets, which make it easier to track and audit spending.

Compare costs with usage: Ensure that your spending is aligned with actual usage. If you are paying for resources that are not being utilized fully, it may be time to scale down.

Engage stakeholders: Keep relevant team members involved in the audit process to ensure that business needs align with cloud resources and expense optimization.

How to Use AWS Cost and Usage Reports for Budgeting

One of the most powerful aspects of AWS cost and usage reports is their ability to inform future budgeting decisions. By analyzing historical usage patterns, businesses can make more accurate predictions about future costs, improving overall financial planning.

When using AWS cost and usage reports for budgeting, you can:

Set cost thresholds to reduce cloud costs.
Create a detailed forecast of your cloud spending for the next quarter or year.
Adjust resource allocation dynamically based on actual usage trends.

Conclusion

Mastering AWS cost monitoring is essential for businesses looking to optimize their cloud spending and ensure efficient resource utilization. By leveraging AWS cost and usage reports, and conducting regular AWS audits, organizations can implement effective AWS cost monitoring strategies that reduce unnecessary costs and enhance budgeting accuracy. Integrating these tools into your AWS cost management plan not only provides transparency but also ensures that your cloud operations remain financially sustainable.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.

If you have any questions concerning this article or have an AWS project that requires our assistance, please reach out to us by leaving a comment below or email us at sales@accendnetworks.com.

Thank you!

Tags AWS Cloud Computing, AWS Cloud Security, AWS Cloud Services

Blogs

Mastering AWS Cost Monitoring

Post author By Lino Almojela
Post date October 8, 2024
1 Comment on Mastering AWS Cost Monitoring

Mastering AWS Cost Monitoring: Essential Tools & Techniques

Controlling and reducing cloud costs can be challenging, particularly in settings like Amazon Web Services, where resources are constantly changing. To keep your cloud spending in check, it’s important to implement effective and master AWS cost monitoring strategies as a significant part of this process involves leveraging AWS cost reports, and AWS usage reports, and conducting AWS audits. These tools offer insight into how resources are being utilized and where spending can be optimized, contributing to more efficient AWS cost management.

In this blog, we will dive into the role of cost reports in AWS cost management, and how you can use this resource to improve your budgeting and auditing processes.

Why AWS Cost Monitoring is Important

Monitor AWS spending is very important for businesses to keep their cloud spending under control. This monitoring process includes:

tracking resource usage and costs in real-time
fixing any inefficiencies as they happen.

The key tools to help with AWS cost monitoring include AWS cost reports and AWS usage reports. These provide:

visibility into both current spending and resource utilization, making them indispensable for cloud financial management.

Understanding AWS Cost Reports

AWS cost reports are detailed documents that provide insights into the costs associated with the resources you are using. They break down the costs by service, resource type, and time frame, allowing for an in-depth look at where your budget is going. These reports are essential for businesses looking to optimize their spending.

You can use AWS cost reports to:

Track your overall spending trends.
Identify which services are consuming the most resources and budget.
Make informed decisions on resource allocation and scaling.

By regularly reviewing these reports, you can implement effective AWS cost-monitoring strategies that will help you identify inefficiencies and reduce unnecessary expenses.

Let’s explore how to access and view your AWS usage reports efficiently.

To view AWS usage reports, log in to the AWS Management Console and ensure you have the appropriate permissions. In the search bar type billing and cost management then select it under services.

In the Billing and Cost Management dashboard, navigate to the left side of the panel and select Cost Explorer Saved Reports from the navigation menu.

You will be able to view your saved reports. If you want to create a new report, simply click on Create New Report. Otherwise, you can review the available reports, which are automatically generated by AWS by default.

Let’s try viewing one of the reports to see what it entails. In the Cost Explorer Saved Reports section, click on any available report to open it. The report will display detailed information, including:

Cost breakdown by service, region, or usage type.

Usage patterns over time
Trends in spending for particular services
Forecasting for future costs based on current usage trends

This report will help you analyze your spending and identify opportunities for optimization.

When you scroll down, you’ll see a detailed Cost and Usage Breakdown. This section provides a granular view of your AWS spending, including:

Service usage costs (e.g., EC2, S3, RDS)
Monthly usage trends for specific services or accounts

This breakdown allows you to pinpoint areas where optimizations can reduce costs and improve overall AWS cost tracking.

On the right side of the reports UI, you can adjust the report parameters. Here, you can customize:

Date ranges: Select specific time frames to view cost and usage data, whether for the past month, week or any custom range.
Granularity: Choose between monthly, daily, or hourly granularity, depending on how detailed you want the report to be. This helps you monitor your AWS spending more closely based on your needs.

Now, let’s explore how to create a cost report. In the Cost Explorer dashboard, click on the Create Report button.

Next, select your Report Type from the available options, such as Savings Plans reports and Reservation reports. Once you’ve chosen your preferred report type, click on the Create Report button to generate your custom report.

By incorporating these reports into your budgeting strategy, businesses can gain greater control over their cloud expenses, enabling more informed decision-making and optimizing AWS cost management.

Conclusion.

To sum up, implementing effective AWS billing management strategies is important for saving on cloud spending. By using AWS cost and usage reports for budgeting, businesses can track expenses more accurately and make informed decisions. Checking these reports often helps show where money is going and find ways to remediate unnecessary expenditures alongside enhancing good financial planning.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.

If you have any questions concerning this article or have an AWS project that requires our assistance, please reach out to us by leaving a comment below or email us at sales@accendnetworks.com.

Thank you!

Tags AWS, AWS Cloud Security, AWS Cloud Services

Blogs

Leveraging AWS Lambda for Efficient Stale

Post author By Lino Almojela
Post date October 8, 2024
No Comments on Leveraging AWS Lambda for Efficient Stale

Automating Your Infrastructure: Leveraging AWS Lambda for Efficient Stale EBS Snapshot Cleanup

EBS snapshots are backups of your EBS volumes and can also be used to create new EBS volumes or Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). However, they can become orphaned when instances are terminated or volumes are deleted. These unused snapshots take up space and incur unnecessary costs.

Before proceeding, ensure that you have an EC2 instance up and running as a prerequisite.

AWS Lambda creation

We will configure a Lambda function that automatically deletes stale EBS snapshots when triggered.

To get started, log in to the AWS Management Console and navigate to the AWS Lambda dashboard. Simply type “Lambda” in the search bar and select Lambda under the services section. Let’s proceed to create our Lambda function.

In the Lambda dashboard, click on Create Function.

For creation method, select the radio button for Author from scratch, which will create a new Lambda function from scratch.

Next, configure the basic information by giving your Lambda function a meaningful name.

Then, select the runtime environment. Since we are using Python, choose Python 3.12.

These are the only settings required to create your Lambda function. Click on Create Lambda Function.

Our function has been successfully created.

By default, the Lambda timeout is set to 3 seconds, which is the maximum amount of time the function can run before being terminated. We will adjust this timeout to 10 seconds.

To make this adjustment, navigate to the Configuration tab, then click on General Configuration. From there, locate and click the Edit button.

In the edit basic settings dashboard, name your basic settings then scroll down.

Under the Timeout section, adjust the value to 10 seconds, then click Save.

Writing the Lambda Function

import boto3

def lambda_handler(event, context):
ec2 = boto3.client(‘ec2’)

# Get all EBS snapshots
response = ec2.describe_snapshots(OwnerIds=[‘self’])

    # Get all active EC2 instance IDs
    instances_response = ec2.describe_instances(Filters=[{‘Name’: ‘instance-state-name’, ‘Values’: [‘running’]}])
    active_instance_ids = set()

    for reservation in instances_response[‘Reservations’]:
        for instance in reservation[‘Instances’]:
            active_instance_ids.add(instance[‘InstanceId’])

    # Iterate through each snapshot and delete if it’s not attached to any volume or the volume is not attached to a running instance
    for snapshot in response[‘Snapshots’]:
        snapshot_id = snapshot[‘SnapshotId’]
        volume_id = snapshot.get(‘VolumeId’)

        if not volume_id:
            # Delete the snapshot if it’s not attached to any volume
            ec2.delete_snapshot(SnapshotId=snapshot_id)
            print(f”Deleted EBS snapshot {snapshot_id} as it was not attached to any volume.”)
        else:
            # Check if the volume still exists
            try:
                volume_response = ec2.describe_volumes(VolumeIds=[volume_id])
                if not volume_response[‘Volumes’][0][‘Attachments’]:
                    ec2.delete_snapshot(SnapshotId=snapshot_id)
                    print(f”Deleted EBS snapshot {snapshot_id} as it was taken from a volume not attached to any running instance.”)
            except ec2.exceptions.ClientError as e:
                if e.response[‘Error’][‘Code’] == ‘InvalidVolume.NotFound’:
                    # The volume associated with the snapshot is not found (it might have been deleted)
                    ec2.delete_snapshot(SnapshotId=snapshot_id)
                    print(f”Deleted EBS snapshot {snapshot_id} as its associated volume was not found.”)

Our Lambda function, powered by Boto3, automates the identification and deletion of stale EBS snapshots.

Navigate to the code section then paste in the code.

After pasting the code click on test.

In the test dashboard, fill in the event name, you can save it or just click on test.

Our test execution is successful.

If you expand the view to check the execution details, you should see a status code of 200, indicating that the function executed successfully.

You can also view the log streams to debug any errors that may arise, allowing you to troubleshoot.

IAM Role

In our project, the Lambda function is central to optimizing AWS costs by identifying and deleting stale EBS snapshots. To accomplish this, it requires specific permissions, including the ability to describe and delete snapshots, as well as to describe volumes and instances.

To ensure our Lambda function has the necessary permissions to interact with EBS and EC2, proceed as follows.

In the Lambda function details page, click on the Configuration tab, scroll down to the Permissions section, and expand it then click on the execution role link to open the IAM role configuration in a new tab.

In the new tab that opens, you’ll be directed to the IAM Console with the details of the IAM role associated with your Lambda function.

Scroll down to the Permissions section of the IAM role details page, and then click on the Add inline policy button to create a new inline policy.

Choose EC2 as the service to filter permissions. Then, search for Snapshot and add the following options: DescribeSnapshots and DeleteSnapshots.

Also, add these permissions as well Describe Instances and Describe Volume.

Under the Resources section, select “All” to apply the permissions broadly. Then, click the “Next” button to proceed.

Give the name of the policy then click the Create Policy button.

Our policy has been successfully created.

After updating our lambda function permissions, click deploy. After deployment, our lambda function will be ready for invocation, we can either invoke the lambda function directly through the AWS CLI by an API call or indirectly through other AWS services.

After deployment let’s now head to the EC2 console and create a snapshot. Navigate to the EC2 console and locate snapshot in the left UI of EC2 dashboard then click create snapshot.

For resource type, select volume. Choose the EBS volume for which you want to create a snapshot from the dropdown menu.

Optionally, add a description for the snapshot to provide more context.

Double-check the details you’ve entered to ensure accuracy.

Once you’re satisfied, click on the Create Snapshot button to initiate the snapshot creation process.

Taking a look at the EC2 dashboard, we can see we have one volume and one snapshot.

Go a head and delete your snapshot then take a look at the EBS volumes and snapshots, we can see we have one snapshot, we will trigger our lambda function to delete this snapshot.

We can use the Eventbridge scheduler to trigger our lambda function, which automates this process, but for this demo, I will run a CLI command to invoke our lambda function directly. Now going back to the EC2 dashboard and checking our snapshot we can see we have zero snapshots.

This brings us to the end of this blog clean-up.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.

If you have any questions concerning this article or have an AWS project that requires our assistance, please reach out to us by leaving a comment below or email us at sales@accendnetworks.com.

Thank you!

Tags AWS Cloud, AWS Cloud Computing, AWS Cloud Security, AWS Cloud Services

Blogs

Minimizing Cross-Region Data Transfer Expenses in AWS

Post author By Lino Almojela
Post date October 7, 2024
No Comments on Minimizing Cross-Region Data Transfer Expenses in AWS

Minimizing Cross-Region Data Transfer Expenses in AWS: Cost-Saving Strategies

Introduction

As companies increasingly adopt cloud services, one major cost that can be overwhelming is cross-region data transfer costs. When transferring data across AWS regions, such as from us-east-1 to us-west-2, fees can build up quickly. It is important to learn the mechanics of AWS data transfer costs and implementing strategies for data transfer optimization is essential to managing your cloud budget effectively and minimizng cross-region data transfer expenses in AWS.

In this blog, we will explore the cost-effective methods for AWS cross-region data movement, along with best practices to reduce AWS cross-region data transfer costs.

A quick review of Accessing services within the same AWS Region

If an internet gateway is used to access the public endpoint of the AWS services in the same Region there are no data transfer charges. If a NAT gateway is used to access the same services, there is a data processing charge (per gigabyte (GB)) for data that passes through the gateway.

Accessing Services Across AWS Regions

If your workload accesses services in different Regions, there is a charge for data transfer across regions. The charge depends on the source and destination Region.

What Is Cross-Region Data Transfer Costs?

Cross-region data transfer is transferring data to or from any AWS region. When you transfer data from one region to another, AWS charges you based on the amount of data being transferred. These costs are usually calculated per GB and vary depending on how far apart the regions are.

For example:

Transferring data between us-east-1 and eu-west-1 incurs data transfer egress fees from the us-east-1 region.
The farther apart the regions are, the more expensive the data transfer might be.

Key Factors Affecting Cross-Region AWS Data Transfer Costs

Geographical Distance: Cross-region data transfer between regions that are far apart (like us-east-1 and ap-southeast-1) can be significantly more expensive than transfers between closer regions (like us-east-1 and us-west-2).

Data Volume: The more data you transfer, the more it costs. AWS prices are based on the amount of data in GB, so as the data increases, so do the costs.

Transfer Direction: AWS charges for data leaving a region (egress) but not for inbound data transfer into the destination region.

Best Practices to Reduce AWS Cross-Region Data Transfer Costs

Use AWS Direct Connect: AWS Direct Connect offers a private network link between your local data center and AWS, which results in faster data transfer speeds than those over the public internet. This can be particularly helpful for large-scale cross-region data transfers.

A Direct Connect gateway can be used to share a Direct Connect across multiple Regions.

Leverage Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Services like Amazon CloudFront can cache data in multiple AWS edge locations, reducing the need for repeated cross-region transfers by serving cached content to users closest to their geographical location.

AWS Global Accelerator: If you need low-latency, high-availability solutions across regions, consider AWS Global Accelerator. It optimizes network routes and reduces the amount of cross-region traffic by routing user requests to the optimal endpoint.

Replication Strategies: Optimize your cross-region replication by choosing the appropriate AWS service:

Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) allows you to replicate objects between buckets in different regions, ensuring you only transfer what’s needed.
Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables replicate your data automatically across regions, eliminating the need for manual cross-region synchronization.

Consolidate Regions: Reducing the number of regions used in your application architecture can significantly reduce AWS data transfer costs. Focus on running your application in fewer regions while still maintaining performance and high availability.

Monitor Data Transfer: Use tools like AWS Cost Explorer and Amazon CloudWatch to analyze and track data transfer patterns between regions. These tools help identify and optimize unnecessary cross-region data transfers.

Conclusion

Effectively managing cross-region data transfer costs in AWS is very important for businesses that use cloud services across the world. By using these best practices to reduce AWS cross-region data transfer costs and leveraging AWS’s built-in tools and services, you can save money without affecting performance and availability. Start optimizing your AWS data transfer costs by strategically choosing data replication methods, consolidating workloads, and utilizing services like AWS Direct Connect and Amazon CloudFront.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.

If you have any questions concerning this article or have an AWS project that requires our assistance, please reach out to us by leaving a comment below or email us at sales@accendnetworks.com.

Thank you!

Tags AWS Cloud Computing, AWS Cloud Security, AWS Cloud Services

Blogs

Effortless Task Scheduling with Amazon Event Bridge Scheduler

Post author By Lino Almojela
Post date October 3, 2024
No Comments on Effortless Task Scheduling with Amazon Event Bridge Scheduler

Effortless Task Scheduling with Amazon Event Bridge Scheduler: Features and Use Cases

In today’s cloud-centric world, automating tasks is key to optimizing operations and reducing costs. Amazon EventBridge Scheduler is a powerful service that helps you schedule tasks across AWS services. In this blog, we will explore the features, capabilities and advantages of Amazon EventBridge Scheduler. Stay tuned.

What is Amazon EventBridge Scheduler?

Amazon EventBridge Scheduler is a serverless scheduling service that lets you create, manage, and invoke tasks based on a defined schedule. It’s built on the EventBridge framework, which helps you develop event-driven architectures. With EventBridge Scheduler, you can automate routine tasks and workflows by defining schedules that trigger specific actions in your AWS environment. It is designed to handle both one-time and recurring tasks on a massive scale.

Amazon EventBridge Scheduler allows you to create one-time or recurring schedules that can trigger over 200 AWS services, utilizing over 6,000 APIs.

What Problem Does EventBridge Scheduler Solve?

EventBridge Scheduler offers a more streamlined, flexible, and cost-efficient way of managing scheduled tasks rather than third-party tools.

Real-world use Case scenarios for EventBridge Scheduler

Task Reminders for Users
Imagine a task management system where users want reminders for upcoming tasks. With EventBridge Scheduler, you can automate reminders at intervals like one week, two days, and on the due date. This could trigger emails via Amazon SNS, saving you from manually managing each reminder
Managing Thousands of EC2 Instances
A large organization, such as a supermarket chain with global operations, may have tens of thousands of EC2 instances spread across different time zones. EventBridge Scheduler can ensure instances are started before business hours and stopped afterward, optimizing costs while respecting time zone differences.

SaaS Subscription Management
SaaS providers can also leverage EventBridge Scheduler to manage subscription-based services. For example, you could schedule tasks to revoke access when a customer’s subscription ends or trigger reminder emails before their license expires.

In all these scenarios, EventBridge Scheduler not only simplifies task scheduling but also minimizes application complexity and reduces operational costs.

With a minimum granularity of one minute, you can efficiently schedule tasks at scale without managing infrastructure.

Key Features of EventBridge Scheduler:

Precise Scheduling: You can schedule tasks with a minimum granularity of one minute, offering flexibility for frequent or specific time-based tasks.

At-Least-Once Event Delivery: EventBridge Scheduler ensures reliable task execution by delivering events at least once to the target service.

Customizable Configuration: You can set specific delivery parameters, such as the delivery window, retries, event retention, and Dead Letter Queue (DLQ):

Time Window: Events can be spread over a window to minimize load on downstream services.
Event Retention: Set how long an unprocessed event is kept. If the target service doesn’t respond, the event may be dropped or sent to a DLQ.
Retries with Exponential Backoff: Retry failed tasks with increasing time delays to improve success chances.
Dead Letter Queue (DLQ): Failed events are sent to an Amazon SQS queue for further analysis.

Default Settings: By default, EventBridge Scheduler tries to send the event for up to 24 hours, retrying up to 185 times. If no DLQ is configured, failed events are dropped after this period.

Encryption: All events are encrypted with AWS-managed keys by default, though you can also use your own AWS KMS encryption keys for added security.

EventBridge Rules vs. Scheduler: While you can also schedule tasks using EventBridge rules, EventBridge Scheduler is more optimized for handling functions at scale, providing more advanced scheduling and delivery options.

Event-Driven Architecture: As part of the EventBridge ecosystem, the scheduler can trigger events that other AWS services can respond to, facilitating the development of event-driven applications.

Conclusion

In summary, Amazon EventBridge Scheduler is an essential tool for organizations looking to automate tasks efficiently and at scale. By offering advanced features like retries with exponential backoff, event retention, and dead letter queues, along with built-in encryption, it simplifies the management of scheduled tasks while reducing application complexity and costs.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.

If you have any questions concerning this article or have an AWS project that requires our assistance, please reach out to us by leaving a comment below or email us at sales@accendnetworks.com.

Thank you!