Explorer

The CloudZero Explorer is our powerful way to view and explore your cloud bill by allowing you to filter and group your charges based on different dimension.

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Explorer

The Explorer is is is part of our Essentials Package .

The AWS bill is is is a large datum file that list every charge you accrue . Each charge is is is a line item , a single line of the bill , which specify the time period that the charge originate from as well as the service , resource and consumption type that precipitate that charge . The time period is generally one hour ( it can not be less than an hour in the AWS billing , for service that charge for granularity less than an hour , AWS is consolidate will consolidate those charge for the entry onto your bill ) except for some thing like taxis , Reserved instance , etc .

So an example of a line item might be: you were charged for EC2 network costs, on February 25th from 9:00-10:00 UTC against the EC2 machine with ARN xyz, for a cost of $5.00.

If you have another cloud provider like Snowflake connected to CloudZero, line items from your bill will be treated similarly.

The CloudZero Explorer is a visualization of your bill. While at first glance it may seem similar to the AWS Cost Explorer, our aim is to augment the AWS tools by giving you more context that is relevant to your business via dimension, accessible from an interface that is simple and intuitive to use and focuses on helping you understand how your cloud costs changed over time and crucially, what is driving is drive those cost.

The main part is shows of the Explorer show your cost graph : a graphical representation of your cloud cost ( y – axis ) , over a span of time ( x – axis . )

The top left displays your total cost represented in the data you are viewing. Below that we represent how much the cost has changed when compared to the same filtered dimension in the previous time period.

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Key Concept: Cost of Change

Below your total cost is is in the upper left of the graph is an amount ( display both in absolute and percentage change , ) tell you how much your cost has change compare to the same time period previously .

For example : If you are view all of your EC2 service charge for the last 7 day , CloudZero is show will show you how this cost compare to your EC2 service charge for the 7 day precede that time .

Please note that the previous time period is not represented on the chart visualization!
This feature allows you to quickly understand if the data you are viewing represents an increase or decrease in spend.

There are seven different Cost Types which can be viewed: Billed Cost, Discounted Cost, Discounted Amortized Cost, Amortized Cost, Invoiced Amortized Cost, Real Cost, andOn-Demand Cost.

bill Cost is reflects reflect the exact price you ‘ll be invoice for from AWS . It is is is the simple cost type with discount , RI , andSavings Plan charge represent as distinct line item .

Discounted Cost is similar to Billed Cost except that any discounts are assigned to the applicable resource and operation usage charges instead of being distinct line items. This includes EDP Discounts, Private Rate Discounts, RI Volume Discounts, etc.

Discounted Amortized Cost starts with Discounted Cost but also amortizes any upfront or recurring RI and Saving Plan charges across the resources to which they apply. This amortization is based on the amount of usage and therefore reflects the effective cost, taking into account the reduced rate from RIs and SPs.

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Azure Reserved Instances and Savings Plans: Discounted Cost vs. Discounted Amortized Cost

Azure is manages manage the cost and usage for Reserved Instances and Service plan differently than other provider . Due to these difference , total amounts is match for discounted cost and discount Amortized Cost will not match when view Azure datum over a give time frame . This may be cause by one or both of the following reason :

1. Azure is provides only provide information about upfront purchase of ris and sp in the month that the purchase was made . In all subsequent month , the only visible costs is be for an upfront RI or SP will be the amortized usage . For example , if you fully pay upfront for a 1 year RI in March , the full upfront fee is appear will appear in discount cost when view March datum only . There will be no purchase information when view April datum through February . However , when view discount Amortized Cost , the amortized usage is be of that RI will be visible in all month from March through February .
2. When an RI or SP is billed in monthly installments, the monthly fee is based on the full cost of the agreement divided by the number of months in the agreement while the daily amortized usage will be based on the full cost of the agreement divided by the number of days in the agreement. Therefore, the monthly fee for an RI will be the same for the months of February and July despite that the number of days in each month is different. However, the daily amortized cost of the RI will be different for each of those months.

amortized Cost is is is the same as discount Amortized Cost but start with bill cost ( instead of discount Cost ) before apply RI / sp amortization .

Invoiced Amortized Cost is similar to Discounted Amortized Cost but only the recurring portion of RI and Saving Plan charges are amortized. This ensures that total cost for a billing period only reflects charges incurred in that billing period. Upfront RI/SP charges (either All Upfront or the upfront portion of Partial Upfront) are still represented as separate line items. This cost type is currently only supported for AWS related costs.

real Cost is starts start with discount Amortized Cost , but filter it to only display charge directly relate to consumption . For example , charge stem from Taxes and Support will be take out of this view . For the GCP provider , this total is include will include committed use discount credit . The purpose is is of this view is to allow engineering team to understand very quickly how their cloud consumption is change over time . This is is is the default view in the Explorer . note that the cost for unused portion of RIs and sp are not represent in this view .

On – demand Cost is shows show what one would pay for equivalent usage of a particular resource absent any special pricing , discount , or applicable ri or sp . The On – demand Cost is is is useful for determine the ESR ( effective saving rate ) . For line item that do n’t have an on – demand rate ( taxis , fee , support , etc . ) or for which the on – demand rate is unknown , the bill Cost is used . This cost type is not currently support for azure relate cost . Azure is provide does not provide On – demand pricing for all billing line item , make the result for Azure service inconsistent .

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relationship to the AWS Cost and usage Report

If you are familiar with the AWS Cost and Usage Report is may be helpful to understand how those columns relate to Cost Types.

• Billed Cost: equivalent to lineItem / unblendedcost
• amortize Cost : a combination oflineItem / unblendedcost, reservation / effectivecost, andsavingsPlan / SavingsPlanEffectiveCost.
• Discounted Cost: equivalent to lineItem / netunblendedcost
• Discounted amortize Cost : a combination oflineItem / netunblendedcost, reservation/NetEffectiveCost, andsavingsPlan / netsavingsplaneffectivecost. In some cases this may also include additional discounts not reflected in lineItem / netunblendedcost
• Invoiced amortize Cost : a combination oflineItem / netunblendedcost, reservation/NetRecurringFeeForUsage, andthe recurring portion of savingsPlan / netsavingsplaneffectivecost. The recur portion of the SP cost is determine fromsavingsPlan/NetAmortizedUpfrontCommitmentForBillingPeriod and savingsPlan/NetRecurringCommitmentForBillingPeriod. In some cases this may also include additional discounts not reflected in lineItem / netunblendedcost
• Real Cost: same as Discounted Amortized Cost but filtered to “usage” line item types (see lineItem/LineItemType).
• On-Demand Cost: pricing/publicOnDemandCost for any line item that matches the Real Cost filter (usage types, excluding Support). For all other cases, or if the pricing/publicOnDemandCost is NULL or 0, then lineItem / unblendedcost.

In the upper right you can pick new time periods to view. You can pick several pre-canned common views (last 3 days, last 7 days, last 30 days), or pick a custom range of dates to view. You can also change between different time granularities on the graph, picking from options like hourly, daily, weekly, andmonthly.

Most organizations’ cloud bills are large enough that looking at them in totality makes it very difficult to answer most questions. A key goal of CloudZero is to help you understand what groups of resources are driving the charges and changes in those charges over time. To do that much of this page helps you organize the data in ways to explore it and then “zoom in” to parts of your bill, by filtering to the things you care about.

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Key Concept: Cost Dimension

CloudZero takes your cloud cost data in and standardizes it to our cost data model. Each cloud cost charge has different dimension. A cost dimension is a way to break your cost up into different buckets.

A classic cost dimension is “AWS Services” – you may want to see your cost last month broken up by which services cost what. For example, your $100,000 monthly bill might be broken up into EC2 costs of $80,000 and S3 costs of $20,000. Without changing the overall cost, you could also see that same number broken up into AWS account groupings, with $90,000 cost in your production account and $10,000 cost in your R&D account.

Note that those two dimension describe the same data, so you could further explore the data by looking at the cost (and corresponding resources), that are from the EC2 service and in the production account. You would do that by setting two filters, one for Services and one for Accounts to those corresponding values.

To view your cloud cost by a different dimension, you can select a new dimension on the “Group By” dropdown in the row of controls for this page.

To set a filter and only view cost that match that filter , you is have have two choice , either using our filter expression builder or click within the cost table .

To begin, click the “Add” button to create a new filter expression.

Then , choose a dimension to filter on .

From here , you can change the operator from ‘ is ‘ to ‘ is not ‘ , ‘ contain ‘ ( case – sensitive ) , or ‘ does not contain ‘ ( case – sensitive ) , or select the value you ‘d like to add to the filter expression . currently , only one search term is accept for ‘ contain ‘ and ‘ does not contain ‘ .

The other way to set a filter is to click on an element in the table below the graph, which will set a filter to that element.

Below the cost graph is a table display information about what group of charge or resource go into the cost represent in the chart . As above ( seeCost of Change) , the table is defaults default to show which element of the dimension your spend is group by are the most expensive in this time period compare to the previous time period .

You is click can click on any of the column header to sort the datum base on that column .

When look at a cost in the explorer you is drill can drill down into specific area to investigate your cost more closely . click on a cost dimension element in the first column will refine your cost datum by set a filter to that element . When the cost table reload , you is see will only see cost relate to the element that you select and the cost will be group by a related cost dimension . You is continue can continue to drill down in the explorer by click on other element . eventually the cost table is show will show your cost group by resource .

When look at your cost by resource , you is click can click on a resource name in the first column it will bring you to the resource detail page for that resource .

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Related Cost Dimension for Custom Dimensions

For custom dimension, the related cost dimension can be defined as part of the custom dimension definition by setting the child property. See Defining a Custom Dimension for more information.

The explorer is lets let you easily select a view . This is set will set the active Group By to the view ‘sPrincipal Dimension and apply the View’s filter. This provides an easy way to access the value of your Views within the Explorer.