What is the difference between Direct and Indirect Costs?

Products

• CloudHealth

Issue/Introduction

AWS and Azure reports two types of costs:

• Direct Cost: These costs have a resource ID or asset ID associated with them. The platform can attribute these costs to an asset or resource and can therefore allocate them to a Perspective group.
• Indirect Cost: These costs are not associated with a resource ID or an asset ID. Support costs are an example of indirect cost. Therefore, they cannot be attributed to a group.

The platform classifies an AWS or Azure Service as a Direct Cost or Indirect Cost. When AWS or Azure introduces a service, the platform initially classifies the service cost as an Indirect Cost. Then, when support for that service is built into the platform, the service cost becomes a Direct Cost that can be allocated to Perspective Groups.