AWS provides two powerful tools for segmenting and allocating your AWS costs: tags, and linked accounts. But getting the most out of them requires planning, consistency and buy-in from your team. In this webinar, you'll learn proven strategies for separating your resources into multiple linked accounts and assigning tags to your resources. Then you'll see how to use Cloudability to precisely track where your AWS spending is going and provide detailed reporting for the decision-makers who need it. What you’ll learn: • When to use tags vs. linked accounts for cost allocation. • How to create a successful tagging strategy. • How to report and share your costs with the right decision-makers in your organization.

1. Advanced Strategies for AWS Cost Allocation with
Tags and Linked Accounts

2. Introducing
J.R. Storment
Kyle Lichtenberg
Co-Founder
Cloudability
Solution Architect
Amazon Web Services

3. Webinar Overview
 Submit Your Questions using the Q&A tool.
 A copy of today’s presentation will be made available on:
 AWS SlideShare Channel@ http://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/
 AWS Webinar Channel on YouTube@ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTnPlVzJI-ccQXlxjSvJmw

4. What We’ll Cover
 Overview of AWS Tags and Linked Accounts
 Strategies for:
 Using tags vs. linked accounts for cost allocation
 Creating a successful tagging strategy
 Reporting and sharing your costs with the right decision-makers in your
organization
 Q&A

5. Value of AWS
• Lower Total Cost of IT
– Economies of scale
– High volume, low margin business is in our DNA
– Constant price reductions

6. Value of AWS
• Agility
– Start infrastructure in seconds
– Experiment often with low cost risk
– Pay only for what you use

7. Manage the Costs
• Tagging
– User definable key-value tags for EC2 resources
– Tags are visible on your AWS bill
• Linked Accounts
– Tie multiple accounts to a single payer
– Share Reserved Instances

8. Completing the Solution
• Managing/Enforcing tags
• Reporting on tags in a meaningful way
• Know when to use linked accounts

9. Introduction
AWS Cost Allocation
1.
Tags and Linked
Accounts
2.
Developing your plan
3.
Building cost reports
@cloudability
@cloudability

10. About Us
Cloud Infrastructure Analytics
Infrastructure analytics for scaled web businesses and enterprises.
750M+ in tracked cloud costs. 10,000+ Users
@cloudability
@cloudability

11. How It Works
Our Solution
1
4
Spend
Management
Spending visibility via
monthly forecasts, dashboard, budget alerts, and
daily email digests.
RI Purchase
Analytics
Understand the exact
combination of Reserved
Instances that will
maximize your savings.
2
Cost
Analytics
5
Enterprise
Enablement
Dig into your
operating costs with
detailed costs by tag,
service, and usage
type.
3
EC2 Usage
Analytics
Spot under-utilized
resources w/ instance
level usage metrics.
Organizational group
views/filtering/rollups,
multi-user access.
@cloudability
@cloudability

12. AWS cost
allocation in your
company
@cloudability

13. What's your primary driver
for doing Cost Allocation?
@cloudability
@cloudability

14. AWS cost allocation at your company
The pieces
๏
2 major business units
@cloudability

15. AWS cost allocation at your company
The pieces
๏
๏
2 major business units
Dozens of products and
cost centers
@cloudability

16. AWS cost allocation at your company
The pieces
๏
๏
๏
2 major business units
Dozens of products and
cost centers
Dedicated and shared
AWS resources
@cloudability

17. AWS cost allocation at your company
The pieces
๏
๏
๏
๏
2 major business units
Dozens of products and
cost centers
Dedicated and shared
AWS resources
Distributed teams using
AWS
@cloudability

18. DIFFERENT PEOPLE IN YOUR COMPANY
NEED
TO SEE THOSE AWS RESOURCES
IN DIFFERENT WAYS
@cloudability

19. AWS cost allocation at your company
The players
Finance needs:
๏
๏
๏
Intra-month cost accruals for
PO’s
Monthly breakdowns of cost
by product, shared resource
and environment
Chargeback costs throughout
the organization
@cloudability

20. AWS cost allocation at your company
The players
Operations needs:
๏
๏
๏
Breakdown of team/project AWS
spending against budget
Alerts when teams/projects
could be more efficient
Reserved Instance
recommendations to lower
hourly AWS costs across
teams/projects
@cloudability

21. AWS cost allocation at your company
The players
Engineering needs:
๏
๏
๏
Daily breakdown of changing
costs by project or revision
Their own spending broken
down by resources to find
inefficiency
Automated cost allocation
reports for other departments
throughout the company
@cloudability

22. Tools for splitting
costs
@cloudability
@cloudability

23. Tools for splitting costs
#1: Tags
1. Tags are key value pairs
2. You can apply up to 10 tags per resource
3. Tag keys and values are case sensitive
@cloudability
@cloudability

24. Tools for splitting costs
#2: Linked Accounts
Use linked accounts to split up things that really matter
@cloudability
@cloudability

25. Tools for splitting costs
Tags vs. Linked Accounts
•
Tags are highly flexible but 100%
coverage is difficult due to compliance
•
Linked accounts offer clean
chargeback but limit reporting options
•
Solution: Use Both
@cloudability
@cloudability

26. Developing your
plan
@cloudability
@cloudability

27. First, get everyone involved
@cloudability

28. Cost Allocation Strategies
Three Rules of AWS Cost
Allocation
1.
Focus on reportable dimensions
2.
Tag systematically using a
consistent nomenclature
3.
Aim to answer questions
@cloudability
@cloudability

29. Developing Your Plan
Questions to answer
1.
What cost centers are affecting the bottom line?
2.
What business unit of the organization does this
spending fall under?
3.
How does it cost to operate each of my
products?
4.
How do version changes to my architecture
impact cost?
5.
Are we leaving things on or over-provisioning for
our staging, test or dev environments?
@cloudability
@cloudability

30. Tools for splitting costs
Watch out for inconsistency
Tag Key
Env
Enviornment
enviroment
Environemnt
Environment
Environment
EnvironmentType
Environmnt
Envrionment
Tag programmatically to ensure consistency
@cloudability
@cloudability

31. Understanding tags
Be sure to map duplicate keys
@cloudability
@cloudability

32. Reserved Instance Pricing
Components
Tag everything you can
@cloudability

33. Understanding Tags
Use Name tag for everything
•
Tag S3 buckets with Name to track bandwidth
•
Tag EBS Volumes with instance Name to get total
compute costs
•
Tag RDS DB instances, snapshots, replicas, etc.
•
Concatenate Name Tag = Service-Role-ClusterNode
•
Use Cloudformation, Puppet, Chef to automatically
tag
@cloudability
@cloudability

34. Building cost reports
(demo)
@cloudability
@cloudability

35. Cost Allocation
Takeaways
•
Use consistent nomenclature that answers
specific questions
•
Tag everything you can, and use linked
accounts liberally
•
Enforce tagging via technology like
Cloudformation, Puppet, or Chef
•
Use the Name tag for everything you can
•
Share the reports with more than just finance
@cloudability
@cloudability

36. START A FREE 14-DAY
TRIAL
AT CLOUDABILITY.COM
@cloudability

37. Questions
Contacts:
Cloudability Info:
https://cloudability.com/contact/
AWS Contact:
aws.amazon.com/contact-us

38. We’d like your feedback.
Please complete a short survey.
https://aws.asia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_a
XJMVpG9SoAfj8N