Cost Optimization - Billing

Using Cost Optimization Billing

The Billing dashboard of Cost Optimization provides a detailed view of costs generated by Amazon Web Services and Azure resources in your cloud environment. Use the Billing dashboard to get an overview of cloud spending, break down costs by specific criteria like location or resource type, and observe trends in resource spending.

Configure Billing Monitoring

In order to receive billing data from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure, you must configure your existing monitoring devices in LogicMonitor to export cost information from each service.

This guide assumes your LogicMonitor account is configured to monitor AWS and Azure devices. For more information, see Adding Devices in LogicMonitor documentation.

AWS

To receive AWS billing data, a Cost and Usage Report provides billing data to LogicMonitor.

Note: Keep the following in mind when creating this report:

• Use AWS Cost and Usage Reports 2.0 when setting up billing monitoring whenever possible. Version 2.0 provides the Account Name in the report sent to LogicMonitor, while version 1.0 does not. Using a combination of versions 1.0 and 2.0 may display two different names for the same account in LogicMonitor Billing.
• Selecting Include resource IDs when configuring your report is not recommended. LogicMonitor does not currently collect these IDs.
• Selecting Daily granularity and Parquet compression optimizes your report and reduce your data egress costs from AWS.
• Activate Cost Allocation Tags in the AWS console and mark the resources and property normalization aliases you want included in Recommendations. For more information, see Activating user-defined cost allocation tags from AWS.

1. Create a new Cost and Usage Report (CUR) within the AWS console. For more information, see Creating Cost and Usage Reports from AWS.
2. Once you create a new CUR, select the report in your AWS console and copy the S3 bucket name and path prefix assigned to it. 
3. In LogicMonitor, navigate to Resource Tree and select the resource group used to monitor your AWS environment.
4. Select the Manage icon, then select the Billing tab.
5. Enter the S3 Bucket Name and Report Path Prefix into the provided fields, and select Save.

Azure

To receive Azure billing data, you need a data export with permissions to access billing data.

1. Create a new data Export within the Azure console. For more information, see Create and manage exported data from Azure.
2. Assign a role within Azure to your LogicMonitor resource group. For more information, see Assign Azure roles to external users using the Azure portal from Azure. This process requires the Azure Client ID associated with your LogicMonitor resource group.
3. In the LogicMonitor Resource Tree, select the Manage icon for your Azure resource group, then select Permissions to locate the Client ID.
4. Select the report and copy the Subscriptionid assigned to it. The Subscription name provided by Azure in the cost export will appear as the Account Name in LogicMonitor Billing. If you want to enable Enhanced Billing features, copy the following details:
   • Export Name
   • Storage Account Name
   • Storage Account Container Name
   • Storage Account Container Directory
5. In LogicMonitor, navigate to Resource Tree and select the resource group used to monitor your Azure environment.
6. Select the Manage icon, then select the Billing tab. Enter the information above into the provided fields, and select Save.

Enable Billing Dashboard

You can create a new role with permission to access Cost Optimization features, or use your existing administrator role, to view the Billing dashboard. For more information see Roles in LogicMonitor documentation.

To enable the dashboard, navigate to Settings > Users and Roles. On the Roles tab, select a role to edit and click the Settings icon in the Actions tab. On the Permissions tab, select Cost Optimization and verify that Billing is enabled. Save any changes.

Once the required permissions are active, Billing displays in the Cost Optimization section of LogicMonitor.

Navigate Billing

Select Billing in the navigation sidebar to view current billing data. Use Filter by to filter billing data by specific properties. Select the plus icon to choose a filter property, and enter any details to refine the selected filter. Use Quick add to easily add filter properties for provider, account, region, resource type category, and resource type. Widgets will update automatically to reflect the selected filters.

Select Reset to defaults to remove any filter properties and view the default overview for all widgets. Select Undo or Redo to revert to the previous configuration, or reapply an undone change.

Select a value in the Show top dropdown to adjust how many resource properties to include in billing data results, up to 25. For example, selecting Show Top 10 adjusts billing data for the 10 resources with the highest associated cost.

You can also select the time range used to calculate total costs. You can choose any value from 7 days up to 1 year, or apply a custom range. Billing data in dashboard widgets automatically updates to reflect the selected range.

Overview

The Overview tab displays a wide range of billing data for your environment. Widgets in this tab provide an overview of the following billing details:

• Total cost in time range – This includes notes on the highest cost resource category for that period. 
• Cost by Provider – An area graph displays cost trends for each active cloud provider.
• Breakdown by Provider and Account – A pie chart visualizes the total cost impact of each cloud provider.
• Breakdown by Resource Type Category – A pie chart visualizes the total impact of resource types.
• Cost by:
  • Location – A map displays costs by resource region.
  • Charge Type – A bar chart displays each billing category generating cost data.
  • Resource Type – A word cloud visualizes the providers and resources generating cost data.
  • Environment – An area graph displays cost trends for each active environment (production, demo, etc.)
  • Application – An area graph displays cost trends by application.
  • Owner – An area graph displays cost trends by owning account.
  • Business Unit – An area graph displays cost trends for each business unit.
  • Tenant – An area graph displays cost trends by active tenant.
  • Version – An area graph displays cost trends for each production version.

Select Menu Options on a widget to view summary data or export the related data to a CSV file.

Weekly and Monthly Trend

Select the Weekly Trend or Monthly Trend tabs to track spending history by week or month.  These tabs provide insight about historical increase or decrease in costs for your environment for the selected time period.

Widgets also display changes in cost, trends focused by filter properties, cost forecasts, and top movers for increases and decreases in cost. There are also widgets that display trends in cost for general compute, storage, database, and networking resources. 

Select Menu Options on a widget to view summary data or export the related data to a CSV file.

Other Filter Tabs

Additional tabs display more focused billing data related to specific cost scenarios for your current filters. Select a tab to view widgets related to costs by Provider, Account, Region, and Resource Type.

Select the Raw Data tab to see a table of basic billing data related to your current filters. Use the widget menu to sort visual data based on parameters you set. Use the Menu Options to unpin any pinned totals, and export the table to CSV or Excel.