AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR) is the most comprehensive cost and usage data available for AWS accounts. It provides detailed information about your AWS costs and usage, enabling organizations to analyze spending patterns and optimize their cloud infrastructure investments.
Key features of AWS C…AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR) is the most comprehensive cost and usage data available for AWS accounts. It provides detailed information about your AWS costs and usage, enabling organizations to analyze spending patterns and optimize their cloud infrastructure investments.
Key features of AWS Cost and Usage Reports include:
**Granular Data**: CUR delivers hourly or daily line items for each service, usage type, and operation. This granularity allows SysOps Administrators to identify exactly where costs originate and track usage patterns over time.
**Resource-Level Information**: Reports can include resource IDs, enabling you to attribute costs to specific EC2 instances, S3 buckets, RDS databases, and other AWS resources. This is essential for chargeback and showback scenarios.
**Integration with S3**: Reports are delivered to an Amazon S3 bucket you specify. From there, you can integrate with various analytics tools like Amazon Athena, Amazon QuickSight, or third-party business intelligence solutions.
**Cost Allocation Tags**: CUR supports both AWS-generated tags and user-defined cost allocation tags, helping you organize and categorize spending by department, project, environment, or any custom dimension.
**Reserved Instance and Savings Plans Data**: The reports include detailed information about your RI and Savings Plans utilization, coverage, and amortized costs, helping you maximize discount program benefits.
**Report Configuration Options**: You can customize reports to include specific data columns, choose compression formats (GZIP, Parquet), and select time granularity based on your analysis requirements.
For SysOps Administrators, CUR is invaluable for cost optimization initiatives. By analyzing these reports, you can identify underutilized resources, rightsize instances, detect anomalous spending, and make data-driven decisions about Reserved Instance purchases. Setting up CUR through the AWS Billing Console is straightforward, and reports typically become available within 24 hours of configuration.
AWS Cost and Usage Reports - Complete Guide
What are AWS Cost and Usage Reports?
AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR) are the most comprehensive set of cost and usage data available from AWS. They provide detailed information about your AWS costs and usage, broken down by service, resource, tags, and more. CUR delivers reports to an Amazon S3 bucket that you specify, and you can configure the report to update automatically throughout the day.
Why are AWS Cost and Usage Reports Important?
Understanding CUR is essential for several reasons:
• Granular Cost Visibility: CUR provides the most detailed cost data available, down to the hourly or resource level • Cost Allocation: Enables accurate cost allocation across departments, projects, or teams using tags • Optimization Opportunities: Helps identify unused resources, underutilized capacity, and savings opportunities • Compliance and Auditing: Provides detailed records for financial compliance and auditing purposes • Integration Capabilities: Data can be analyzed using Amazon Athena, Amazon QuickSight, or third-party tools
How AWS Cost and Usage Reports Work
Report Creation Process: 1. Navigate to the AWS Billing Console 2. Select Cost and Usage Reports 3. Create a new report with your preferred settings 4. Specify an S3 bucket for delivery 5. AWS delivers report files in CSV or Parquet format
Key Configuration Options: • Time Granularity: Hourly, Daily, or Monthly • Report Versioning: Create new report versions or overwrite existing reports • Data Integration: Enable for Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift, or Amazon QuickSight • Compression: GZIP or Parquet format • Include Resource IDs: Option to include individual resource identifiers
Report Contents Include: • Product codes and usage types • Pricing information and discounts • Reserved Instance and Savings Plans utilization • Resource tags for cost allocation • Account IDs for consolidated billing
Integration with Analytics Services
• Amazon Athena: Query CUR data using standard SQL queries • Amazon QuickSight: Create visualizations and dashboards • Amazon Redshift: Load data for complex analytics • Third-party tools: Export to external cost management platforms
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on AWS Cost and Usage Reports
Key Points to Remember:
1. CUR vs. Other Cost Tools: When questions ask about the most detailed or most comprehensive cost data, CUR is typically the answer. It provides more detail than Cost Explorer or AWS Budgets.
2. S3 Bucket Requirement: CUR always requires an S3 bucket for delivery. The bucket must have the appropriate bucket policy to allow AWS to write reports.
3. Data Latency: Reports can be updated multiple times per day, but there may be a delay of up to 24 hours for usage data to appear.
4. Resource-Level Data: If a question mentions tracking costs for specific EC2 instances or individual resources, CUR with resource IDs enabled is the solution.
5. Athena Integration: Questions about querying cost data with SQL point toward using CUR with Amazon Athena integration.
6. Cost Allocation Tags: CUR works with both AWS-generated tags and user-defined cost allocation tags for organizing costs.
7. Reserved Instance Analysis: CUR includes Reserved Instance utilization and coverage data, making it ideal for RI optimization questions.
8. Multi-Account Scenarios: For AWS Organizations, CUR can consolidate cost data across all member accounts when created from the management account.
Common Exam Scenarios:
• Scenario: Need to analyze costs by department → Answer: Use CUR with cost allocation tags • Scenario: Need SQL-based cost analysis → Answer: CUR integrated with Amazon Athena • Scenario: Need the most granular billing data → Answer: CUR with hourly granularity and resource IDs • Scenario: Create cost dashboards → Answer: CUR with Amazon QuickSight
Remember: CUR is free to use, but you pay for S3 storage and any analytics services used to process the data.