Reconcile GCP Costs within CloudHealth: Project Costs are not Matching Up

Products

• CloudHealth

Issue/Introduction

 

 

Confirm Total Overall Costs Line Up

This is the most important step in the process as it not only confirms that all cost data is being collected correctly but that information provides confidences in the metrics.  This should be a quick process by following these steps:

• Pull together a grand total of all costs for the time period in question from the GCP console (generally it's easier to limit scope to a specific month even if an issue spans many)
• Reference that same data set within CloudHealth with all filters and categorizations removed

The totals should line up.  This is good news because it shows that all cost data is captured and the conversation is no longer about missing or added cost, but categorization.  If the totals do not line up, be sure to check your billing account configuration status and please submit a ticket to Technical Support to assist if necessary.

Resolution

Review the Project Comparison

Once you have ruled out a billing project configuration or total cost discrepancy as the cause, you can start to focus on the specific project discrepancies.

The CloudHealth Project Costs are Higher than GCP

The main reason is most likely due to CloudHealth assigning Enterprise Support charges (and potentially other costs) to specific projects as opposed to GCP leaving them as generic costs not associated to any project.

When referring to costs in the GCP platform and categorizing by "Project", there may be a separate group of costs that will show as "Charges not specific to a project":

Enterprise Support charges, for example, will fall into this catch-all project category like seen below:

While these charges are not reflected in the project specific totals within the GCP platform, they are included in the project costs within CloudHealth.  CloudHealth will take the support cost value and divvy it up proportionally to the cost associated to each project.  

For instance, in the below table you'll notice the project "Charges not specific to a project" is $15,000:

That cost will roll into the total overall cost (which is why total costs will still match up correctly in CloudHealth) but it will be disbursed proportionally out to each project which will seemingly inflate project totals when comparing to GCP (since GCP project totals DO NOT include these charges).

 

One way in this scenario to attempt to get cost values to match up at the project level is to filter out the "Support - Enterprise" charges in CloudHealth but note that it may not be possible to get the reports lined up exactly:

  

NOTE Enterprise Support charges are just an example of costs that fall into the "Charges not specific to a project" but GCP may include others.  Be sure to categorize those costs by SKU to get more detail into what charges fall into the "Charges not specific to a project" section as additional cost may need to be filtered out in CH for totals to match.

 

The CloudHealth Project Costs are Lower than GCP

If project vs project costs are lower in CloudHealth vs GCP console costs this may be an indication that there is a broader issue regarding overall costs not being fully captured.  One quick way to see if there may be missing data is to review the cost in a daily view and see if there may be particular days that are lower than expected.  If you notice anything like this in the platform and have confirmed billing account configuration is healthy, please reach out to Technical Support for assistance.