AWS Trusted Advisor is a powerful tool that provides real-time guidance to help optimize your AWS infrastructure, improve security, and reduce costs. For the SysOps Administrator exam, understanding Trusted Advisor's cost optimization recommendations is essential.
Trusted Advisor analyzes your AWS…AWS Trusted Advisor is a powerful tool that provides real-time guidance to help optimize your AWS infrastructure, improve security, and reduce costs. For the SysOps Administrator exam, understanding Trusted Advisor's cost optimization recommendations is essential.
Trusted Advisor analyzes your AWS environment and provides recommendations across five categories: Cost Optimization, Performance, Security, Fault Tolerance, and Service Limits. The cost optimization pillar specifically identifies opportunities to reduce your monthly AWS spending.
Key cost recommendations include:
1. **Idle Load Balancers**: Identifies Elastic Load Balancers with no active backend instances or minimal request activity, suggesting termination to avoid unnecessary charges.
2. **Underutilized EC2 Instances**: Flags instances with low CPU utilization (typically below 10%) over a 14-day period. You can rightsize or terminate these resources.
3. **Unassociated Elastic IP Addresses**: Detects Elastic IPs not attached to running instances, which incur hourly charges when unused.
4. **Amazon RDS Idle DB Instances**: Identifies database instances with no connections over extended periods, recommending snapshot creation and termination.
5. **Reserved Instance Optimization**: Analyzes your usage patterns and recommends Reserved Instance purchases for consistent workloads, potentially saving up to 72% compared to On-Demand pricing.
6. **Amazon EBS Volumes**: Identifies unattached or underutilized EBS volumes that could be deleted or downsized.
Access levels vary by AWS Support plan. Basic and Developer plans receive limited checks, while Business and Enterprise Support plans unlock all Trusted Advisor checks plus API access for automation.
For the exam, remember that Trusted Advisor integrates with Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring check status and can trigger automated remediation through AWS Lambda functions. You can also configure weekly notification emails summarizing recommendations.
Implementing Trusted Advisor recommendations regularly ensures cost-effective resource management and demonstrates operational excellence in managing AWS environments.
Trusted Advisor Cost Recommendations
Why It Is Important
AWS Trusted Advisor is a critical tool for optimizing your AWS infrastructure costs. Understanding how to leverage its cost recommendations can help organizations save significant amounts on their monthly AWS bills. For the AWS SysOps Administrator Associate exam, this topic is essential because cost optimization is a core responsibility of SysOps administrators, and Trusted Advisor is one of the primary tools AWS provides for identifying cost-saving opportunities.
What Is Trusted Advisor?
AWS Trusted Advisor is an online resource that inspects your AWS environment and provides real-time recommendations across five categories: - Cost Optimization - Performance - Security - Fault Tolerance - Service Limits
For cost optimization specifically, Trusted Advisor analyzes your usage patterns and resource configurations to identify areas where you might be overspending or underutilizing resources.
How Trusted Advisor Cost Recommendations Work
Trusted Advisor performs automated checks against your AWS resources and compares them to AWS best practices. The cost optimization checks include:
1. Low Utilization Amazon EC2 Instances Identifies instances with low CPU utilization over a 14-day period, suggesting potential candidates for downsizing or termination.
2. Idle Load Balancers Detects load balancers that have no active backend instances or very low request counts.
3. Underutilized Amazon EBS Volumes Finds volumes with low read and write activity that could potentially be deleted or downsized.
4. Unassociated Elastic IP Addresses Identifies Elastic IPs that are allocated but not associated with running instances, which incur charges.
5. Amazon RDS Idle DB Instances Locates RDS instances with no connections over an extended period.
6. Amazon EC2 Reserved Instance Lease Expiration Alerts you when Reserved Instances are about to expire so you can plan renewals.
7. Reserved Instance Optimization Recommends Reserved Instance purchases based on your On-Demand usage patterns.
Access Levels
The availability of Trusted Advisor checks depends on your AWS Support plan: - Basic and Developer Support: Access to core security checks and service limit checks only - Business and Enterprise Support: Access to all Trusted Advisor checks, including full cost optimization recommendations
How to Use Trusted Advisor for Cost Optimization
1. Navigate to the Trusted Advisor console in AWS 2. Select the Cost Optimization category 3. Review the checks with yellow (warning) or red (action recommended) status 4. Click on individual checks to see detailed recommendations 5. Take action on recommendations or exclude specific resources 6. Set up CloudWatch alarms to monitor Trusted Advisor metrics 7. Use AWS EventBridge to automate responses to Trusted Advisor findings
Integration with Other AWS Services
Trusted Advisor integrates with: - Amazon CloudWatch: Monitor Trusted Advisor check statuses - AWS EventBridge: Create automated workflows based on check results - AWS Organizations: View aggregated Trusted Advisor data across multiple accounts
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Trusted Advisor Cost Recommendations
Key Points to Remember:
1. Support Plan Requirements: Always remember that full Trusted Advisor checks require Business or Enterprise Support. If a question mentions Basic or Developer support, the organization will have limited access to cost optimization checks.
2. Specific Check Names: Familiarize yourself with the exact names of cost optimization checks. Exam questions may reference specific checks like Low Utilization EC2 Instances or Idle Load Balancers.
3. Automation Scenarios: When questions ask about automating responses to Trusted Advisor findings, think EventBridge rules combined with Lambda functions or SNS notifications.
4. Multi-Account Management: For questions involving multiple AWS accounts, remember that AWS Organizations provides organizational views of Trusted Advisor data.
5. Refresh Intervals: Trusted Advisor checks refresh at different intervals. Some checks can be manually refreshed, but there are cooldown periods between refreshes.
6. Cost Optimization vs Other Tools: Know when to choose Trusted Advisor over other cost tools like AWS Cost Explorer or AWS Budgets. Trusted Advisor provides actionable recommendations, while Cost Explorer focuses on analysis and visualization.
7. Reserved Instance Recommendations: Trusted Advisor can recommend RI purchases, but for more detailed RI analysis, AWS Cost Explorer is more comprehensive.
Common Exam Scenarios:
- Identifying unused or underutilized resources = Trusted Advisor - Setting up alerts for cost optimization issues = CloudWatch with Trusted Advisor metrics - Automating remediation of cost issues = EventBridge + Lambda + Trusted Advisor - Getting cost recommendations with Basic Support = Limited functionality, consider upgrading support plan