Navigating the Dashboard
The BMC Helix Cloud Cost Service Dashboard presents concise assessments for cost, resources and cloud service usage and has the following components:
Top navigational bar items | Description |
|---|---|
Configure icon | Enables you to manage users, connectors, notifications and resource pools in BMC Helix Cloud Cost. |
Sign Out | Logs you out of the BMC Helix Cloud Cost application. |
Billing Summary
The Dashboard shows the Billing Summary for the selected month.
The green downward equilateral arrow head (
) indicates decreased trend along with the percentage decrease for cost and resources.
The red upward equilateral arrow head (
) indicates increased trend along with the percentage increase for cost and resources.
The decimals are rounded off to the first digit after the decimal point and you can hover over them for more precise values.
The Overall Cost tab shows the total cost incurred for the account under consideration. It also shows the percentage increase or decrease in incurred cost if data for the previous month is available. In case prior data is unavailable, a message is displayed which states "There is no data available for the previous month to calculate the trend value."
Overall Cost is grouped under different filters such as:
The summary tab displays the overall summary for the Total Cost user incurs for the month under consideration as well as the incurred cost of the previous month. It also gives a graphical representation of the Historical Cost with cost plotted along the Y-axis. The Total Resource usage across all available accounts indicated the percentage increase or decrease in resource utilization.
The Resource Pool tab shows the actual cost and the projected cost based on resource pools. User can set the budget by clicking on Set Budget corresponding to each Resource Pool. Orphan resources will be listed at the bottom.
For more details on resource pools, see Manage Resource Pools.
Resource Pool Details
Explore Bill tab under Resource Pool drill down has the following configurations:
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Resource Name | List of cost distribution among the resources under the specific account. |
Actual Cost | Total cost incurred for the resource. |
Resource Type | List of resource types maintained under the specific account. |
Region | Region where the resource is active. |
Account | Name of the Account utilizing the specific resource. |
Service | Name of the service utilizing the specific resource. |
Budget Details
You can set the Budget configuration under Budget tab for the selected Resource Pool.
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Budget Cycle | Budget Cycle can be set to quareterly or monthly. |
Set Budget Amount | Specify the budget amount for selected period(in dollars). |
Thresholds | Set the threshold of percentage for Underspenders and Overspenders. |
The Accounts tab shows the aggregation of actual cost, the percentage of total cost associated with each account, Change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost). Sorting and Filtering is also available on each column.
Sorting and Filtering
Sorting and filtering is available on each column. Sorting can be done either ascending or descending. Filtering can be done 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 click on an account link for a detailed analysis of the resources and associated actual cost, resource type, region and service corresponding to that specific account.
Account Details - Explore Bill Tab
Each account has the following information:
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Actual Cost | List of cost distribution among the resources under the specific account. |
Resource Type | List of resource types maintained under the specific account. |
Region | Region where the resource is active. |
Service | Name of the service utilizing the specific resource. |
Account Details - Services Tab
Each service has the following information:
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Services | Name of the Service. |
Actual Cost | Cost incurred for the service for the selected account with trends. |
Change in Cost ($) | Change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost). |
Change in Cost (%) | Change in cost percentage compared to previous month (based on prorated cost). |
% of Total Cost | Percentage of cost for the service for the selected account. |
Resources | Number of resources with trends for each service. |
The Services Tab shows the aggregation of actual cost, the percentage of total cost incurred to each service (such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, AmazonCloudWatch etc), Change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost). Sorting and Filtering is also available on each column.
Sorting and Filtering
Sorting and filtering is available on each column. Sorting can be done either ascending or descending. Filtering can be done by proving alpha-numeric or numeric values based on the field types. Alpha-numeric filter has default condition as contains. Numeric filter has default condition as greater than or equal to (>=).
Service Details - Resource tab
Each resource has the following information:
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Resource Name | Name of the Resource |
Actual Cost | Actual cost incurred for the resource (in dollars). |
Resource Type | Type of the resource as defined in AWS. |
Region | Region of the Resource. |
Account | Account related to the Resource. |
Service Details - Accounts tab
Account has the following information:
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Account Name | Name of the account related to the selected Service. |
Actual Cost | Actual cost incurred for this account for the selected Service. |
Change in Cost ($) | Change in cost compared to previous month (based on prorated cost). |
Change in Cost (%) | Change in cost percentage compared to previous month (based on prorated cost). |
% of Total Cost | Percentage of total cost consumed by the account for the selected Service. |
Resources | Number of Resources consumed for the account in the selected Service. |
Explorer Bill shows all the cost items for the selected duration.
Sorting and Filtering
Sorting and filtering is available on each column. Sorting can be done either ascending or descending. Filtering can be done 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 (>=).
Each resource has the following information:
Item | Description |
Resource Name | Name of the Resource |
Actual Cost | Actual cost incurred for the resource (in dollars). |
Resource Type | Type of the resource as defined in AWS. |
Region | Region of the Resource. |
Account | Account related to the Resource. |
Service | Service related to the Resource. |
Export to CSV
User can export complete bill in the form of CSV using the option Export to CSV.
The CSV exports complete bill items. All the records including the resources paginated are also exported to the CSV.
Show resources with utilization data
It helps the user to analyze utilization/performance of various VMs deployed in their environment whether they are EC2s or Azure VMs. This should help the user to easily find instances which are underutilized or over-utilized. User should be able to slice and dice the data as their requirement using various column level filters. This should ultimately help a user to better understand their server’s utilization and be able to figure out the parameters required for the recommendation algorithm.
