AWS Budgets is a feature within Amazon Web Services that allows customers to set custom budgets for their AWS costs and usage. This tool is designed to help you manage your cloud spending by enabling you to set budgetary limits and receive alerts when your usage approaches or exceeds these limits. AWS Budgets can be a critical component of a comprehensive cloud cost management strategy, offering flexibility and control over your AWS expenditures.
In AWS Budgets, you can create budgets to plan your service usage, service costs, and instance reservations. The information in AWS Budgets updates three times a day. This helps you to accurately determine how close your usage is to your budgeted amounts or to the AWS Free Tier limits. In AWS Budgets, you can also set custom alerts when your usage exceeds (or is forecasted to exceed) the budgeted amount.
Here’s a breakdown of its key functionalities and how it can be used:
Key Features of AWS Budgets
- Cost and Usage Budgets
- Customizable Alerts
- Forecasting
- Cost Optimization Recommendations
- Time Periods
- Tagging
How AWS Budgets Can Be Used
- Cost Control
- Alerting
- Reporting
- Governance
- Cost Optimization
Example: AWS Budgets
Suppose that you have set a budget for Amazon EC2. You want to ensure that your company’s usage of Amazon EC2 does not exceed $200 for the month.
In AWS Budgets, you could set a custom budget to notify you when your usage has reached half of this amount ($100). This setting would allow you to receive an alert and decide how you would like to proceed with your continued use of Amazon EC2.
AWS Budget is a powerful tool for anyone looking to actively manage their AWS spend. Whether you’re a small startup keeping a tight rein on cloud spending or a large enterprise looking to optimize spending across multiple departments, AWS Budget provides the flexibility and insight you need to manage your cloud finances effectively.