Hourly cost & Usage are now available as part of Cost & Usage Explorer and Assets for GCP and soon will be available also for AWS.
Importance of Cloud Hourly Cost & Usage
By understanding and utilizing hourly cost and usage data, organizations can achieve greater financial control, operational efficiency, and strategic agility in their cloud environments.
Understanding cloud hourly cost and usage is crucial for several reasons:
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Cost Management and Optimization:
- Detailed Cost Tracking: Hourly data provides granular insights into cloud spending, allowing for precise tracking and control of costs.
- Identifying Trends: It helps in identifying usage patterns and trends over time, which can inform decisions to optimize resource allocation and reduce costs.
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Resource Utilization:
- Efficiency: Monitoring usage on an hourly basis ensures that resources are being used efficiently and helps identify underutilized or idle resources.
- Scaling Decisions: It aids in making informed decisions about scaling resources up or down based on actual demand, avoiding over-provisioning or under-provisioning.
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Performance Optimization:
- Identifying Peak Usage: Understanding hourly usage patterns helps identify peak usage times, which can inform decisions about load balancing and resource distribution.
- Performance Tuning: It allows for performance tuning by correlating usage data with performance metrics, ensuring that resources are optimized for the best performance.
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Anomaly Detection and Troubleshooting:
- Anomaly Detection: Regular monitoring of hourly costs and usage can help detect anomalies or unexpected spikes in resource usage, which could indicate issues such as leaks, misconfigurations, or potential security breaches.
- Quick Troubleshooting: Detailed usage data aids in quickly pinpointing the cause of issues, reducing downtime and improving system reliability.
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Compliance and Reporting:
- Regulatory Compliance: Detailed tracking ensures compliance with regulatory requirements by providing accurate and auditable records of resource usage and costs.
- Transparent Reporting: It supports transparent reporting to stakeholders by providing clear and detailed breakdowns of how resources are being utilized and what they cost.
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Chargeback and Showback:
- Cost Allocation: Hourly data facilitates accurate chargeback or showback processes by providing detailed insights into resource usage by department, project, or team.
- Accountability: It promotes accountability by ensuring that costs are attributed to the appropriate units, encouraging responsible usage and cost-saving behaviors.
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Strategic Decision Making:
- Informed Decisions: Access to detailed hourly data enables more informed strategic decisions regarding infrastructure investments, service deployment, and cloud strategy.
- Vendor Negotiations: It provides leverage in negotiations with cloud service providers by demonstrating detailed understanding and control of usage patterns and costs.