Getting Started with AWS Budgets

Introduction

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a range of budgeting tools to help manage costs and resource usage. AWS Budgets is one such tool that allows you to track your costs and usage, and to get alerts when your costs exceed or are forecasted to exceed your budget thresholds.

Use Cases

AWS Budgets is versatile and can be utilized in numerous scenarios:

1. Monitoring Monthly Costs: It's ideal for keeping an eye on your monthly expenditures, helping you stay within your financial limits and avoid unexpected cost overruns.

2. Custom Budgets for Specific Needs: You can tailor budgets to fit specific use cases, such as setting parameters for a particular time period, start month, or specific accounts.

3. Optimizing Reserved Instances (RI) and Savings Plans: AWS Budgets can track the utilization and coverage of RIs and Savings Plans, alerting you when usage falls below a set threshold. This helps in ensuring that these resources are being maximally utilized.

Setting Up AWS Budgets

We have two ways to setup AWS Budgets: Using one of the available templates or using the customization option.

Template Options

AWS Budgets offers templates for easy setup:

1. Zero Spend Budget: Alerts you when your spending exceeds the AWS Free Tier limits.
2. Monthly Cost Budget: Notifies you upon exceeding or potentially exceeding your set budget amount.
3. Daily Savings Plans Coverage Budget: Alerts you when your Savings Plans coverage falls below the defined target.

Customization option

You also have the option to customize your budget:

1. Cost Budgets: Plan your spending for specific AWS services.
2. Usage Budgets: Set usage limits for one or more services.
3. RI Utilization and Coverage Budgets: Monitor and manage your Reserved Instance usage.
4. Savings Plans Utilization and Coverage Budgets: Keep track of your Savings Plans and their effectiveness.

Comparing AWS Budgets with Billing Alarms

While AWS Budgets and Billing Alarms both serve the purpose of cost management, they have distinct differences:

• Flexibility and Detail: AWS Budgets provide more detailed options and flexibility compared to Billing Alarms. You can set up budgets for cost, usage, RI utilization, and Savings Plans coverage, which are not available with Billing Alarms.

• Customization: AWS Budgets allows for more comprehensive customization, including setting specific thresholds, time periods, and alert conditions.

• Forecasting: AWS Budgets can also alert you based on forecasted spend, whereas Billing Alarms are triggered based on actual spend.

Conclusion

In conclusion, AWS Budgets is a comprehensive tool that can help you manage our AWS spending more effectively. With its customizable options and detailed tracking capabilities, it is a step ahead of traditional billing alarms, offering a more nuanced approach to cost management in the AWS ecosystem.