Navigating the Cloud Cost dashboard

The Resource Pools tab lists the resource pools and business services that are associated with a specific user, cost center, or department in your organization. Resource pools that do not have any resources assigned to them are displayed at the end of the list.

• The number of resources that are not associated with any resource pool and the estimated cost spent on these resources is displayed above the resource pools table. 
• The page displays detailed information about the resource pools, such as, the provider name, number of associated resources, budget assigned to the resource pool, actual cost, and projected cost of the resource pool. You can save an offline copy of the resource pool information in a CSV file for reference. To do so, click Export All to CSV. When you export to the CSV file, the details of all the resource pools are exported. 
• Use the Manage Resource Pools link to navigate to the Resource Pools page where you can create a new resource pool or update or delete the resource pools. 

• Click a resource pool name to view the resource pool details. The following details are displayed for the selected resource pool:

  Tab	Description
  Summary	Displays the total cost of the accounts for the current month, the resource cost of the previous month, and the projected cost. The number of days remaining until the end of the month are displayed below total cost. You can choose to view monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly summary of the selected resource pool. A bar graph indicating the current and projected cost of all the resources for the specific account is displayed. The cost is plotted against the Y-axis and the months are plotted against the X-axis. The graph indicates month-wise actual cost and projected cost of the resources. On hovering your mouse over the sections of the graph, you can view the actual and projected cost of the month. The total number of resources used across all the accounts in this resource pool are displayed below Total Resources. The point-to-point graph indicates the increase or decrease in the resource utilization. On hovering your mouse over the points of the graph, you can view the number of resources used on the specific day.  Resource usage and reserved instance recommendations are displayed at the end of the page with a brief overview of the issue, suggested actions to resolve the issue, and the estimated monthly savings that you can achieve by performing the suggested actions.
  Accounts	Displays the aggregation of actual cost, change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), change in cost percentage compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), the percentage of total cost associated with each account, and the number of resources associated with the account. The greenor red arrowindicate a decreased or increased trend along with the percent decrease or increase in the cost or resources in the Change in Cost and Resources column. The decimals are rounded off to the first digit after the decimal point and you can hover over them for more precise values. You can sort the values in an ascending or descending order. Filter is also available on each column.  Click an account name name to view the account details. The following details are displayed for the selected account: Tab Description Summary Displays the total cost of the account for the current month and the cost of the previous month. The number of days remaining until the end of the month are displayed below total cost. You can choose to view monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly summary of the selected account. A bar graph indicating the day-wise cost of the account is displayed. The cost is plotted against the Y-axis and the months/days of the month (if current month is selected) are plotted against the X-axis. On hovering your mouse over the sections of the graph, you can view the actual cost of the day/month. The total number of resources used in this account are displayed in the Total Resources section. The point-to-point graph indicates the increase or decrease in the resource utilization. On hovering your mouse over the points of the graph, you can view details of the number of resources used on the specific day.  Recommendations are displayed at the end of the page with a brief overview of the issue, suggested actions to resolve the issue, and the estimated monthly savings that you can achieve by performing the suggested actions. Services Displays the name, actual cost (cost incurred for the service for the selected account with trends), change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), change in cost percentage compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), percentage of cost for the service for the selected account, and the number of resources with trends for each service. Explore Bill Lists the resources associated with the account. You can choose to view the resource details for monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly period. The page displays detailed information about the resource, such as the resource name, cost distribution among the resources under the specific account, resource types maintained under the specific account, region where the resource is active, name of the service utilizing the specific resource. You can filter and sort the data displayed in table on this page as per your requirement. For columns that show values in text format, you can sort the data alphabetically from A to Z or Z to A. You can also enter free text to filter data in the selected column of the table. For columns that show values in numeric format, you can sort the data in ascending or descending order. You can also use the greater than (>) and less than (<) operators to filter data in the selected column of the table. Select the Show resources with utilization data check box to identify the resources that are underutilized or overutilized. You can save an offline copy of the details of this page in an Excel file for reference by using the Export All to CSV option.
  Services	Displays the aggregation of actual cost, change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), the percentage of total cost incurred for each service (such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, AmazonCloudWatch etc), and the number of resources associated with the service. The green or red arrowindicates a decreased/increased trend along with the percent decrease/increase in the cost or resources in the Change in Cost and Resources column. The decimals are rounded off to the first digit after the decimal point and you can hover over them for more precise values. You can sort the values in an ascending or descending order.  Click a service name name to view the service details. The following details are displayed for the selected service: Tab Description Summary Displays the total cost of the service for the current month and the cost of the previous month. The number of days remaining until the end of the month are displayed below total cost. You can choose to view monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly summary of the selected service. A bar graph indicating the day-wise cost of the account is displayed. The cost is plotted against the Y-axis and the months/days of the month (if current month is selected) are plotted against the X-axis. The graph indicates month-wise actual cost of the services. On hovering your mouse over the sections of the graph you can view the actual of the month. The total number of resources used across all the accounts are displayed in the Total Resources section. The point-to-point graph indicates the increase or decrease in the resource utilization. On hovering your mouse over the points of the graph, you can view details of the number of resources used on the specific day.   Recommendations are displayed for the account at the end of the page with a brief overview of the issue, suggested actions to resolve the issue, and the estimated monthly savings that you can achieve by performing the suggested actions. Accounts Displays the account name, actual cost incurred for this account for the selected service, change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), change in cost percentage compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), percentage of total cost consumed by the account for the selected service, and the number of resources consumed by the account in the selected service. Explore Bill Lists the resources associated with the service. You can choose to view the resource details for monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly period. The page displays detailed information about the resource, such as the resource name, actual cost of the resource, type of the resource as defined by the cloud provider, region of the resource, and the account related to the resource. You can filter and sort the data displayed in table on this page as per your requirement. For columns that show values in text format, you can sort the data alphabetically from A to Z or Z to A. You can also enter free text to filter data in the selected column of the table. For columns that show values in numeric format, you can sort the data in ascending or descending order. You can also use the greater than (>) and less than (<) operators to filter data in the selected column of the table. Select the Show resources with utilization data check box to identfiy the resources that are underutilized or overutilized. You can save an offline copy of the details of this page in an Excel file for reference by using the Export All to CSV option.
  Budget	Assign a budget for the resource pool or business service. To assign the budget to the selected resource pool or business service, select Enable Budget. Select a period for the budget cycle. The following values are available: Quarterly Monthly Specify the budget values. When you modify the defined budget cycle, the budget values for the resource pools or business services are automatically adjusted. For example, consider that the budget for a resource pool with a monthly budget cycle is $100. When you change the budget cycle from Monthly to Quarterly, the budget value is automatically updated to $300. BMC recommends that after you modify the defined budget cycle, you must review the budget values for all the resource pools. Configure the budget thresholds so that you can decide whether a resource pool or business service is underspending, overspending, or in budget. Underspenders: Specify the threshold value in percentage. If the projected cost percentages for a resource pool or business service is less than this value, it is classified as Underspender. Overspenders: Specify the threshold value in percentage. If the projected cost percentages for a resource pool or business service is greater than this value, it is classified as Overspender.
  Explore Bill	Lists the resources associated with the resource pool. You can choose to view the resource details for monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly period. The page displays detailed information about the resource, such as the resource name, actual cost ($) incurred for the resource, provider name, type of the resource as defined in the cloud infrastructure, instance type, region of the resource, account to which the resource is related, and the name of the service as displayed in your cloud infrastructure. You can filter and sort the data displayed in table on this page as per your requirement. For columns that show values in text format, you can sort the data alphabetically from A to Z or Z to A. You can also enter free text to filter data in the selected column of the table. For columns that show values in numeric format, you can sort the data in ascending or descending order. You can also use the greater than (>) and less than (<) operators to filter data in the selected column of the table. Select the Show resources with utilization data checkbox to analyze utilization and performance of your virtual machines or any other services that are deployed in your environment. This option helps to easily find the resources that are underutilized or overutilized. You can save an offline copy of the details of this page as an Excel file for reference by using the Export All to CSV option.

  Important

  When you update a resource pool, the Summary tab shows the cost details of the newly added accounts and services only for the current month, whereas the Accounts, Services, and Explore Bill tabs show the cost details for all the previous months.

  Example scenario

  You have a resource pool with account A and you update the resource pool to add account B. The Summary tab of the resource pool shows the total cost of accounts A and B for the current month. For the previous month, the Summary tab shows the cost of account A only and the Accounts, Services, and Explore Bill tabs show the cost details of both the accounts.

The Accounts tab displays the aggregation of actual cost, change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), change in cost percentage compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), the percentage of total cost associated with each account, and the number of resources associated with the account. 

• The green/red arrowindicates a decreased/increased trend along with the percent decrease/increase in the cost or resources in the Change in Cost and Resources column. The decimals are rounded off to the first digit after the decimal point and you can hover over them for more precise values. You can sort the values in an ascending or descending order. Filter is also available on each column. 

• Click an account name name to view the account details. The following details are displayed for the selected account:

  Tab	Description
  Summary	Displays the total cost of the account for the current month and the cost of the previous month. The number of days remaining until the end of the month are displayed below total cost. You can choose to view monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly summary of the selected account. A bar graph indicating the day-wise cost of the account is displayed. The cost is plotted against the Y-axis and the months/days of the month (if current month is selected) are plotted against the X-axis. On hovering your mouse over the sections of the graph, you can view the actual cost of the day/month. The total number of resources used in this account are displayed in the Total Resources section. The point-to-point graph indicates the increase or decrease in the resource utilization. On hovering your mouse over the points of the graph, you can view details of the number of resources used on the specific day.  Recommendations are displayed at the end of the page with a brief overview of the issue, suggested actions to resolve the issue, and the estimated monthly savings that you can achieve by performing the suggested actions.
  Services	Displays the name, actual cost (cost incurred for the service for the selected account with trends), change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), change in cost percentage compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), percentage of cost for the service for the selected account, and the number of resources with trends for each service.
  Explore Bill	Lists the resources associated with the account. You can choose to view the resource details for monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly period. The page displays detailed information about the resource, such as the resource name, cost distribution among the resources under the specific account, resource types maintained under the specific account, region where the resource is active, name of the service utilizing the specific resource. You can filter and sort the data displayed in table on this page as per your requirement. For columns that show values in text format, you can sort the data alphabetically from A to Z or Z to A. You can also enter free text to filter data in the selected column of the table. For columns that show values in numeric format, you can sort the data in ascending or descending order. You can also use the greater than (>) and less than (<) operators to filter data in the selected column of the table. Select the Show resources with utilization data checkbox to view the utilization data of your resources. This option helps to easily find the resources that are underutilized or overutilized. You can save an offline copy of the details of this page in an Excel file for reference by using the Export All to CSV option.

The Services tab displays the aggregation of actual cost, change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), the percentage of total cost incurred to each service (such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, AmazonCloudWatch etc), and the number of resources associated with the service. 

• The green/red arrowindicates a decreased/increased trend along with the percent decrease/increase in the cost or resources in the Change in Cost and Resources column. The decimals are rounded off to the first digit after the decimal point and you can hover over them for more precise values. You can sort the values in an ascending or descending order. 

• Click a service name name to view the service details. The following details are displayed for the selected service:

  Tab	Description
  Summary	Displays the total cost of the service for the current month and the cost of the previous month. The number of days remaining until the end of the month are displayed below total cost. You can choose to view monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly summary of the selected service. A bar graph indicating the day-wise cost of the account is displayed. The cost is plotted against the Y-axis and the months/days of the month (if current month is selected) are plotted against the X-axis. The graph indicates month-wise actual cost of the services. On hovering your mouse over the sections of the graph you can view the actual of the month. The total number of resources used across all the accounts are displayed in the Total Resources section. The point-to-point graph indicates the increase or decrease in the resource utilization. On hovering your mouse over the points of the graph, you can view details of the number of resources used on the specific day.   Recommendations are displayed for the account at the end of the page with a brief overview of the issue, suggested actions to resolve the issue, and the estimated monthly savings that you can achieve by performing the suggested actions.
  Accounts	Displays the account name, actual cost incurred for this account for the selected service, change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), change in cost percentage compared to previous month (based on prorated cost), percentage of total cost consumed by the account for the selected service, and the number of resources consumed by the account in the selected service.
  Explore Bill	Lists the resources associated with the service. You can choose to view the resource details for monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly period. The page displays detailed information about the resource, such as the resource name, actual cost of the resource, type of the resource as defined by the cloud provider, region of the resource, and the account related to the resource. You can filter and sort the data displayed in table on this page as per your requirement. For columns that show values in text format, you can sort the data alphabetically from A to Z or Z to A. You can also enter free text to filter data in the selected column of the table. For columns that show values in numeric format, you can sort the data in ascending or descending order. You can also use the greater than (>) and less than (<) operators to filter data in the selected column of the table. Select the Show resources with utilization data checkbox to view the utilization data of your resources. . This option helps to easily find the resources that are underutilized or overutilized. You can save an offline copy of the details of this page in an Excel file for reference by using the Export All to CSV option.

The Explorer Bill tab lists the resource details of the first 100k resources, such as the resource name, actual cost incurred for the resource, type of the resource as defined by the cloud provider, region of the resource, account related to the resource, and the service related to the resource. You can sort the values in an ascending or descending order. Apply filters by proving alpha-numeric or numeric values based on the field types. Alpha-numeric filter has default condition as contains. Numeric filter has default condition as greater than or equal to (>=).

You can export the bill in the form of CSV using the option Export to CSV. The exported file contains the bill details of all the resources in the descending order of their actual cost.

Select the Show resources with utilization data checkbox to analyze utilization/performance of various VMs deployed in their environment. This helps you to easily find instances that are underutilized or over-utilized.