Analyzing costs by custom dimensions

To analyze costs by custom dimensions

1. Access the Explore page. Expand the navigation pane of TrueSight console, select  > Cloud Cost Control, and then select the Explore tab. 
   The Explore page displays a table with resources and their costs and other details. By default, the costs for the current month are displayed. 

2. View a cost summary of all the resources

    Review the following resource details.

   Column	Description
   Resource	Name of the resource
   Cost [$]	Cost of the resource for a specific operation as indicated by the associated date stamp
   Provider	Cloud provider that the resource is associated with
   Cloud Service	Cloud service that uses the resource
   Resource Type	Type of the resource. For example, EBS volume, Tax, Load balancer.
   Instance Type	A specification that defines the resources (CPU, memory, and storage) for an instance. For example. m1.small, m1.large.
   Normalized compute hours	Approximate number of hours of compute time used by the instances that are assigned to the cloud service. This metric is displayed only for compute-related services. For more information about normalized compute hours, see Normalized-compute-hours-overview.
   Region	Region where the resource is located.
   Account Name	Name of the account that is associated with the account identifier.
   Account Identifier	A unique identifier assigned to the account that owns the resource. This identifier is assigned by the cloud provider. In case of AWS and Google Cloud Platform, it is the 12-digit account ID. For Azure, it is the subscription ID.

3. Customize the table content

   Depending on your use case, explore and use the options on the page to customize the table content. For advanced use cases, you need to use a combination of these options.

   Customize the table

   You can modify the default name of the table and choose the columns that you want to show.

   Steps

   a. Click Edit. The Edit window opens.

   b. To modify the table name, in the Name box, type a name. 

   c. To remove a column from the table, in the Displayed columns section, click x for the column that you want to remove.

   d. To add a column to the table, in the Displayed columns section, click Select columns and in the Columns window, select the column that you want to add to the table. You can select from the list of cost fields, metrics, and tag types.

   e. If you want to revert all the changes and go back to the default settings, click Reset defaults.

   f. Click Done and then click Apply.

   Information

   - You cannot hide the Resource column.

   - Minimum two columns must be displayed.

   Example

   View AWS resources and their instance types in the table and name the table as AWS resource summary.

   

   ^{* Depending on your product version, the user interface might vary.}

   Apply quick filters

   Values of some columns are clickable and enable you to filter the table content on that value and are called quick filters.

   Steps

   a. Move your mouse over the column value that you want to filter the table data on.

   b. If you see the Filter icon next to the value, click the value. Else, the column value cannot be used as a quick filter. The table displays the data based on the applied filter.

   
   

   Example 

   Determine the cost of a cloud service (On-premises VMware virtual machines) that is using instances of a specific instance type (medium).

   

    ^{* Depending on your product version, the user interface might vary.}

   View summarized data

   The boxes on top of the table that display the total values of a metric are called Summary fields.   

   Steps

   a. Click Edit. 

   b. To remove a summary field, in the Summary fields section, click x for the field that you want to remove.

   c. To add a summary field, in the Summary fields section, click Select field and select the field that you want to add to the table.

   Information

   Only the following summary fields are available:

   • Total Cost
   • Total Number of Instances
   • Total Normalized Compute Hours
   • Total Available Disk Space
   • Total CPU Cores
   • Total Memory
   • Total Used Disk Space

   d. If you want to revert all the changes and go back to the default settings, click Reset defaults .

   e. Click Done and then click Apply.

   Depending on the current data in the table, the total value of the summary field is computed and displayed. If a filter is applied to the table content, then the filtered out data is not considered in the computation of the summary field.

   
   

   Example

   View the total normalized compute hours and costs of your AWS EC2 service.

   

   ^{* Depending on your product version, the user interface might vary.}

   Apply advanced filtering

   Filter the table based on specific cost fields, metrics, and tag types.

   Steps

   a. Click Filter.
   The Filter window displays the different options that you can filter on, which are categorized under Cost fields, Metrics, and Tag types. The tag types and their values that you apply to your resources are displayed under the tag types category. All these categories are available under the All category, which is displayed by default.

   b. From the list, select a category item.

   Tip

   If you know the item that you want to filter on, search for the specific item in the Search box and then, select it.

   The page refreshes and displays the values associated with the category item.

   c. Select one or more values of the selected category item.

   d. Click Done and click Apply.

   The selected category item and values are applied as conditions for filtering the table content.

   Example

   Determine the cost of all the resources that are used by the IT department.

   a. In the Explore page, click Filter.

   b. In the Filter page, select the Department tag type and select IT to apply the condition: Department = IT

   

   

   
   

   c. Click Done and then, Apply.

   The table displays the resources that are used by the IT department. The Total Cost summary field displays the cost of these resources.

   

4. To save an offline copy of the customized page, select Settings  >  Export to PDF or Export to Excel.

5. Drill down into a resource for cost details

   On the Explore page, click the name of the resource that you want to investigate and view details for.

   The Resource details page opens that shows cost and other details for the selected resource such as the average monthly cost, provider, and region. The tags associated with the resource are also displayed.

   The page also displays a chart. For the resource type Tax, the Monthly Cost by Operation chart is displayed, which is a pie chart that describes the monthly cost of the resource for the different operations for which the resource is used. For all other resource types, the Daily Costs chart is displayed, which is a stacked area graph that enables you to compare the daily usage costs based on operations performed on the resource. 

   To view and analyze the bill line-item details for the resource, click the Bill Details tab.  

   The Bill Details page is displayed that provides a line-by-line detailed bill of the costs associated with the selected resource:

   • Name of the selected resource
   • Cost of the resource for a specific operation as indicated by the associated date stamp
   • Date when the resource is used for the associated operation
   • Type of the resource
   • Activity or operation for which the selected resource is used
   • Region where the selected resource is located
   • Specific cost description of how much of the total cost is used by the resource

   
   To save an offline copy of the resource details, select Settings  >  Export to PDF or Export to Excel.

Common use cases

Determine the total cost of all resources

Review the value under Total Cost summary field.

Determine the cost of all on-premises resources that belong to a specific purpose (Automation)

^{* Depending on your product version, the user interface might vary.}

Determine the cost of under-utilized on-premises compute resources

^{* Depending on your product version, the user interface might vary.}