Difference between Direct and Indirect Costs

Products

• CloudHealth

Issue/Introduction

Many reports are split into 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 groups.

Resolution

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.  When support for that service is eventually built into the the platform, the service cost becomes a Direct Cost that can be allocated to Perspective Groups.