How do I track Unused RI costs for All Upfront and Partial Upfront Reservations?

Products

• CloudHealth

Issue/Introduction

If you would like to view the utilization of your reservations, but only purchase All Upfront or Partial Upfront reservations, using the service item "Unused RI" on the Cost History report will not give you a complete picture.  To get visibility of your utilization of the upfront payment side of your reservations, creating a new perspective will give you that information. The following steps outline how to create a perspective that will give you that visibility.

 

1. You'll first need to start with a blank perspective.  It cannot have any assets allocated so it's recommended to create a new perspective fresh.

2. Create a categorized search with Asset Type "EC2 Instance Reservation" and categorize by the field "Active?"

 

3. Select "Add Group" next to the "T" group:

 

4. Create a name for the group. This will be used to help identify the unused costs so one option could be "Unused Upfront RI":

 

5. Add the remaining reservations in the "F" group to the group you just created. 

 

6. Create a categorized search with Asset Type "Account" and categorize by the field "Account Name"

 

7. Select "Add All Groups as Dynamic Rule"

 

The perspective is now complete.  Once processing completes (indicated on the main perspective list page by a teal checkmark), go to the Cost Amortized report and categorize by that perspective. The costs captured under the custom named group you allocated the reservations will equal the total value of the reservations you didn't utilize that month.

Note that in the steps above, a third rule for "Amazon Account" was created. You do not necessarily need to use it as you could create the perspective with any other type of rule that allocates your EC2 Instances (like a tag value).  As long as all of the reservations are allocated prior to the third rule being applied, the perspective will be applied as expected. 

In the screenshot below, the report being referenced is the Cost>Amortized report and "EST" is a perspective that was created using the above process.  The report is being categorized by that perspective so unused upfront RI costs are visible.  The group "Amortized Cost ($), Unused Upfront RI" is used in the filter to provide the relevant cost data: