AWS Cost Optimization Tools: A Quick Overview
Tags: cloud, aws, cloudcost
Published: 2024-04-29 09:04:53

Cost optimization is simply one of the many benefits Amazon Web Services provides its customers. However, Amazon's cost optimization may be more challenging than you imagined. For example, it may be easier for organizations that were "innate" in the cloud, but what about those that "migrated"? By implementing management, governance, and automation, these customers increased the cost of administering on-premises infrastructure. How to do so— You need cloud consulting services. The experts there will help you with best cost optimization practices. 

As more and more organizations adopt the platform as a service, infrastructure as a service, and software as a service model for their applications and services, it's crucial to understand your cloud bill and budget. This understanding is fundamental when using cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, as many IT budgets are now being allocated to them. By being aware of these costs, cloud service users can make informed decisions and effectively manage their budgets.

## How Does AWS Become Costly?

1. You may be paying for compute instances you don't need, leading to underutilization and unnecessary costs, especially when using services like Amazon EC2. 
2. EBS volumes, snapshots, load balancers, and other resources not currently in use incur costs. 
3. Spot instances and reserved instances, which can result in savings of 50% to 90%, are not used when necessary. 
4. Savings Plans are rarely used even though they might help you save money by requiring you to spend a certain amount on Amazon. 
5. Auto-scaling is neither implemented nor optimal; for example, as demand increases, you scale up too much (adding redundant resources). 

## AWS Optimization Tools
Let’s have a look at the AWS optimization tools:

**1) Cost Explorer**
AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that helps visualize cost and consumption statistics using an interactive and user-friendly interface. Data from AWS Cost Explorer is used to examine cost and usage across all AWS pricing model accounts and identify cost consumption trends and usage peaks. The tool presents data from the previous 12 months, which is easily accessible using your preferred analytics tool. 

**2) AWS Instance Scheduler**
The Amazon instance scheduler utility uses Cost Explorer data to automatically cease Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) and Amazon EC2 instances. As a result, Amazon Web Services EC2 can be scaled and planned based on your expected consumption patterns, demands, and needs. 

**3) Amazon CloudWatch**
CloudWatch helps you establish alarms for specific resource levels by analyzing various variables from your Amazon services. 
For example, you could set an alarm to notify you if the percentage of your EC2 instances falls below 40%. After receiving an alarm, you may rapidly examine instance underutilization, explore it, and proportionally resize or combine the workloads. 

**4) AWS Budgets**
AWS Budgets allows you to set budgets for specific Amazon services. The budget can also be tied to specific data, which increases its efficacy. Finally, the Simple Notification Service (SNS) can send emails or messages informing you of AWS Budget events.

Usage Example: You can create a budget for the entire account or a single resource, such as many Amazon EC2 instances or the Amazon CloudFront CDN. 

**5) Amazon Trusted Advisor**
Amazon Trusted Advisor has several functions, including improving security and performance, cutting overall expenses, and optimizing your AWS infrastructure.

This assesses your Amazon configuration and provides best practice recommendations for service limits, performance, cost-cutting, security, and fault tolerance.

## Conclusion
Several alternatives exist for AWS cost optimization, making it challenging to choose one. While waste reduction and buying methods, such as reserved instances, have traditionally been the emphasis of cost optimization, many advanced organizations are now prioritizing technical enablement and architectural optimization. 
Businesses recognize that cost optimization requires providing cost analytics to engineering teams so that they may make cost-effective development decisions. It also necessitates decreasing the AWS pricing structure. Collaborate with a [cloud consulting company](https://successive.tech/cloud-consulting/) to effectively utilize AWS resources.