What's New (SaaS)



What's New has moved!

You can now find our release notes at https://releasenotes.cloudcheckr.com/

Be sure to visit this site to view all new release notes and subscribe for updates.






Below is an archive of historical release notes.

June 21, 2021

AZURE UPDATES

Improvements to Billing Update Cadance for L2 Child Accounts

NOTE: This only impacts customers using the L1/L2 configuration.

When a billing update completes at the L1 parent level, it will now force an update to start at the L2 account. This will help ensure data freshness within the child L2 account.


June 07, 2021

API UPDATES

New AWS API call: billing/delete_tag_mapping

This new API call deletes existing tag mappings.


May 28, 2021

CMx UPDATES

Added two new chart types to Cost dashboards

You can now select Line and Area charts as your format when you build a custom dashboard.

AWS UPDATES

Added CSV exports to the new EC2 List of Reserved Instances report

You can now export the data from the EC2 List of Reserved Instances report to a CSV file.

API UPDATES

New AWS API call: get_ec2_reserved_instances_v2 call

This new API call returns data from the updated EC2 List of Reserved instances report.


May 10, 2021

CMx UPDATES

Added Pie charts to Custom dashboards

You can now select Pie charts as your format when you build a custom dashboard.

AZURE UPDATES

Reservation Purchase Support for Indirect EA Accounts

We have augmented our product support for Indirect Enterprise Agreement (EA) accounts. Now, when you purchase a reservation within any Indirect EAs account, we will collect those costs and show them in the appropriate Cost report.


April 26, 2021

CMx UPDATES

Manage existing API access keys with CloudCheckr CMx technology

You can now use CloudCheckr CMx access tokens when running API calls in our legacy product. You can still use your existing API access keys in the legacy product, but access tokens will provide better security, more consistent authorization management, and the ability to access multiple projects and accounts.

Set Azure currency in a Cost dashboard

If you have an Azure account that uses a currency other than the default option of US dollars (USD), you can now select from a list of available currencies on the Home page of your Azure account.

Updated the Account Export function

We made the following changes to our export function:

  • Added a Credential Status column
  • Increased the API page size to 100
  • Changed the Provider Id column label to Provider ID

Access legacy and CloudCheckr CMx dashboards through the Overview list

When you open the Overview drop-down list on the Home page, you can now choose from dashboards created in our legacy product in addition to the new dashboards you create in CloudCheckr CMx.

AWS UPDATES

Updated the Historical Billing Summary report to display 18 months of data

Changed the Historical Billing Summary report to show 18 months' worth of data by default rather than 36 months of historic costs.

Updated the EC2 List of Reserved Instances report for CUR payers

We have updated the EC2 List of Reserved Instances report for Payer accounts based on the AWS Cost & Usage Report (CUR)—allowing our software to populate data directly from the CUR instead of applying our analysis to fields such as Instances Using Reserved Instances and Percent Consumed.


April 12, 2021

CMx UPDATES

Added two new panes to Custom dashboards

You can now choose from two additional pane options when building a dashboard:

  • Table: allows you to view your data in a spreadsheet-style format
  • 100% Stacked Bar: converts your values from absolute to a percentage of the total

Added a new column to the Users page

Added the User Level Access? column to the Users page under Settings > Access Management. This column will display Yes or No to indicate if a user has direct access to CloudCheckr CMx regardless if you have assigned a role to the user.


March 29, 2021

CMx UPDATES

Custom cost dashboards are now available

We now support and allow you to create custom Cost dashboards on the Home page—enabling you to highlight trends in cost data by creating new charts, drill in on spend within selected service categories, and more.

Set a custom landing page for all users

On the Customization page, admins can now define what page or report users will see when they first log in to the application.

API UPDATES

New AWS and Azure API call: billing/add_tag_mapping

Created this new API call, so that you can add custom tag mappings to your cost reporting.

AWS UPDATES

Improved CloudTrail alert ignore workflow

We have made several usability improvements to the ignoring results from the AWS CloudTrail security alerts. Our Help text now includes an explanation on how to ignore multiple users, leverage wildcards, and add alerts that use the Contain element versus All. You can also add multiple ignore rows for both request parameters and response elements. These improvements should make it easier for you to ensure that you’re the only one getting alerts on the events which are more important to you.

AZURE UPDATES

Added support for new region

We now support Azure deployments in the Brazil Southeast region.


March 15, 2021

API UPDATES

New Azure API call: inventory/get_resources_azure_load_balancer_details

Created this new API call to enable customers to retrieve results from the Azure List of Load Balancers report.

New Azure API call: billing/get_cost_saving_azure

Created this new API call to enable customers to retrieve results from the Azure Cost Savings report.

AZURE UPDATES

VM Right-Sizing Added to MAVs

You can now view the Right-Sizing recommendations for your Azure virtual machines (VMs) in the Azure Multi-Account Views (MAVs) account types. You can find this report in the Utilization module of any selected Azure MAV.

Subscription-Level Historic and Current Costs for Azure Plan Transitions

When a subscription account transitions to Azure Plan within a cloud solution provider (CSP), you can now view its historic and current costs. Previously, you needed to add the subscription account twice. This change also ensures that you have consistent costs throughout the lifetime of the subscription.


March 1, 2021

CMx UPDATES

Partner Admins can create new child customers (L2s)

If you are a Partner Admin, you can now create, edit, disable, and delete child customers (L2s) in the Customers tab on the Account Hierarchy page.

Custom inventory reports in left navigation pane

We now include all existing custom inventory reports in the left navigation pane under the Resources module. When you save a new custom inventory report, we will also update the list of custom inventory reports displayed in the pane.

API UPDATES

New AWS API call: billing/get_ri_historic_savings

Created this new API call to allow AWS Payer and Payee accounts to retrieve data from the RI Historical Savings report.


February 15, 2021

GENERAL UPDATES

Improved messaging for large Advanced Grouping exports

We have improved the text that displays after you execute an export in the Advanced Grouping report to better clarify why we must deliver your data via export.

AZURE UPDATES

Added Cost Savings report to Multi-Account Views

We have added the Cost Savings report to the Azure Multi-Account Views (MAVs).

Better multi-currency support for invoicing

If you are an Azure customer who use multiple currencies in your Payer account, you can now convert each currency separately during invoicing. Under the Advanced Options in the Invoice Generator, we will show a row for each currency we detected in the cost data that you can convert.


February 1, 2021

AWS UPDATES

Updates to AWS GovCloud Account Configuration

We have made the following changes to the configuration process for AWS GovCloud accounts, so that you can more easily onboard and manage these accounts:

  • You no longer need to add a commercial paying account ID to create a GovCloud account. However, without the paying commercial account, the software won’t display any cost data.
  • You can change the linked commercial paying account after you create the account. This update allows you to correct mistakes during onboarding without having to delete and recreate the account.
  • The software can now validate that you are not assigning the same commercial account to multiple GovCloud accounts.

Update to VPC Security Group IP Range Collection

We updated the way we collect IP ranges from VPC security groups, which corrected an issue where—under certain conditions—our software displayed None instead of 0.0.0.0 on inbound or outbound rules. As a result, these rule changes may impact the Security Group Rules Added and/or Deleted rows in the Change Monitoring report for the data collected on February 2, 2021. While this change is expected for that date, it should not impact any other dates. If you have any questions, please contact our Support team.

AZURE UPDATES

Added support for Gateway Load Balancers

We updated the EC2 Load Balancer Inventory reports and Best Practice Checks to support Gateway Load Balancers.


January 18, 2021

AWS UPDATES

Added support for more projects within the Jira integration

We have updated our Jira integration to support all the available projects within a Jira account. Previously, this list was limited to 50 projects. You can manage your Jira integration by navigating to Account Settings > Integrations > Configurations.

New AWS Well-Architected Tool Inventory report

To support AWS’s Well-Architected Tool, we have launched the AWS List of Well-Architected Workloads report, which can help you gain visibility and track your workloads and milestones from the Well-Architected Tool over time. This report provides a summary of your workloads—showing accounts, owners, risks, and more—as well as a detailed breakdown of each milestone set against your workload. The report breaks down each milestone by lenses and pillars, allowing you to see how your workloads have evolved over time.

To access this report, navigate to Inventory (or Resources) > Well-Architected. By default, this report is disabled; to enable it, click the link within the report. Once enabled, the software will begin to retrieve data from the Well-Architected Tool and build the report.

Please note that new IAM permissions are required for us to report on this data: "wellarchitected:List*" and "wellarchitected:Get*".


January 4, 2021

AZURE UPDATES

Government Subscription VM Memory Metrics Improvements

We’ve made updates to the ways we can get VM memory metrics for Azure Government subscriptions. Those metrics are visible within our reporting and are leveraged for recommendations such as Right-Sizing.


December 7, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Redesigned account switcher to simplify navigation

Improved layout, search, and filtering within the account switcher makes it easier to quickly find desired accounts. As you open and close the account switcher, any filters previously applied will persist.

Sorting of the account list

Click on a column header to sort the table by a particular column. The sort will be reflected when exporting the table as well.

API UPDATES

New alternateSamlProviders property added to users

When creating or editing a user, you can now specify alternate SAML providers. This allows an admin to specify that a user can login using one of several SAML providers (previously, each user could only be assigned to one provider).

AZURE UPDATES

Improved ability to retrieve large datasets from Advanced Grouping

If you are generating a report in Advanced Grouping that includes 5 or more groupings, or includes a group for Instance Id, a back-end process will execute and deliver your CSV via email. This prevents a long delay when trying to process the large dataset within the browser.


November 9, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Automatically organize newly created payee accounts within the Account Hierarchy

When we ingest new billing data, you have the option to enable a feature that automatically creates accounts for any newly detected payees. To date, these auto-created payees have been added to the "root" level of the hierarchy. Because of this, administrators were required to periodically curate the hierarchy to rearrange any newly created payees. With this new feature, you can set a rule on a payer account that determines where any child payee accounts should be created within the hierarchy.

Set user-specific permissions by defining user level access entitlement

No longer are you required to manage all account access and permissions via role membership. User level access lets you define what accounts a user can access and what permissions the user has while creating or editing the individual user. These entitlements are in addition to any permissions inherited from that user’s role(s) membership.

Dashboards dropdown menu added to Overview page

A dropdown menu has been added to the Overview page (next to the account name) that allows you to choose from a list of dashboards that have been assigned to you. Upon selection, you will be taken to the respective page for that dashboard.

General UPDATES

Re-named “Tag Mapping - Splitting” to “Share Assist”

Our “Tag Mapping - Splitting” feature has been re-named to “Share Assist”. The report is still found within the Cost > Tags manu, and all other functionality remains the same.

AWS UPDATES

CloudTrail Get, List, and Describe events are no longer collected by default

To maintain focus on actionable security and event information, we will no longer collect CloudTrail GET, LIST, and DESCRIBE events by default.

However, your existing configuration will not be changed or impacted if you currently have any alerts configured for any of these CloudTrail event types, or if you have already configured collection for only specific GET, LIST or DESCRIBE events.

If you would like us to still collect any of these event types, you can re-enable their collection within the Security > Activity Monitoring > AWS API (CloudTrail) > SetUp page. Uncheck the box next to the event type(s) you would like us to collect and save.


September 28, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Configure custom cost for a newly created payer account

After creating and credentialing a payer account, you can now configure custom cost before the first billing ingestion has occurred. The Configure Custom Cost page is now visible immediately post-creation (page location is Billing => Configure => Configure Custom Cost).

Requested large export emails delivered with proper download URL

When initiating a large export (from a report such as Advanced Grouping), we will send you an email with a link to download the requested file. With this update, the download link will respect the proper application and environment where the download was initiated.

Enhanced Account List Functionality

The list view of accounts in your account hierarchy now includes a column with the credential status for the account. A new search box is now present at the top of the list where you can filter the data on Provider and / or Type. You can also perform a text search to find specific accounts. While clicking on a row will open a drawer to edit the selected account, you can now scope into that account and begin viewing reports by clicking the new Home icon.

API UPDATES

GET accounts endpoint supports 2 new filter options

When retrieving a list of accounts via API, you can now filter by creation date and credential status. A few examples - 1) show me all accounts created since 2020-09-01 2) show me all accounts with a credential status of NotConfigured. A future update will incorporate this into the UI so the account list can be filtered similarly.

AZURE UPDATES

Azure Plan: Subscription/Entitlement Id Update

We have completed our efforts to change the Subscription Id field in our cost reporting for Azure Plan. This update applies these changes to the historic data collection (the previous change only impacted the current month).

Before this change, the value was mapped to the Azure Plan Subscription Id (which is an aggregate of multiple Azure Subscriptions at the plan level). To make reporting consistent with our Legacy CSP implementation, and provide needed reporting at the Azure Subscription level, we have updated this field to represent the Entitlement Id. The Entitlement Id maps to individual Azure Subscriptions, allowing you to generate reporting at that level of granularity.

We have also added multiple help tooltips in the various cost reports to signify this change.

AWS UPDATES

Updates to credit handling within AWS Bill Summary Reports

The AWS Bill Summary reports will now reflect the day the credits are being written to the AWS Cost & Usage Report (CUR), ensuring the summary reports align with the way costs are displayed within the Advanced Grouping report.


September 15, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Export List of Users to CSV

From the Users table (Access Management => Users), you can now export the full list of users to CSV. This saved CSV file includes details such as when users were created, last logged in, whether they have been activated, and which roles they belong to.

Improved handling of user token expiration

A user’s token expires every hour. This is to ensure that if a user’s permissions have changed, they cannot continue to access resources for longer than that. Previously, when the token was expiring, users were presented with a warning message before the application forced a new session. With this enhancement, the token refresh happens silently without any disruption to the user experience. NOTE: Users are still subject to a 4 hour hard timeout (after 4 hours, they must re-authenticate).

API UPDATES

Update to get_detailed_billing_with_grouping_v2

We have updated the API method, "get_detailed_billing_with_grouping_v2", to properly handle a situation where a saved filter was built with all accounts selected, and accounts are added to the bill later. Before this update, the API would only return accounts that existed when the save filter was initially saved. Now, the response will include all accounts, which mimics the behavior of the Advanced Grouping report.

AZURE UPDATES

Azure Plan: Subscription/Entitlement Id Update

We are making a change to the Subscription Id field in our cost reporting for Azure Plan. Before this change, the value was mapped to the Azure Plan Subscription Id (which is an aggregate of multiple Azure Subscriptions at the plan level). To make reporting consistent with our Legacy CSP implementation, and provide needed reporting at the Azure Subscription level, we have updated this field to represent the Entitlement Id. The Entitlement Id maps to individual Azure Subscriptions, allowing you to generate reporting at that level of granularity.

Update to Unattached Managed Disks Best Practice Check

The Unattached Managed Disks best practice check has been updated to properly account for disks that are managed as part of a scale set.


August 31, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Export List of Accounts to CSV

We have added export functionality to the account list within the CMx account hierarchy. This will generate a CSV download with all accounts and columns for the various properties of each account. If you have filtered the table, the export will contain the filtered results. To download the CSV, click at the top right above the accounts list.


August 17, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Requested large export emails delivered with proper download URL

When initiating a large export (from a report such as Advanced Grouping), we will send you an email with a link to download the requested file. With this update, the download link will respect the proper application and environment where the download was initiated.

Enhanced Account List Functionality

The list view of accounts in your account hierarchy now includes a column with the credential status for the account. A new search box is now present at the top of the list where you can filter the data on Provider and / or Type. You can also perform a text search to find specific accounts. While clicking on a row will open a drawer to edit the selected account, you can now scope into that account and begin viewing reports by clicking the new Home icon.

AWS UPDATES

Updates to credit handling within AWS Bill Summary Reports

The AWS Bill Summary reports will now reflect the day the credits are being written to the AWS Cost & Usage Report (CUR), ensuring the summary reports align with the way costs are displayed within the Advanced Grouping report.


August 4, 2020

AWS UPDATES

Updates to how Enterprise Support payee support charges are handled

We have made a change to the behavior within the Payee Support Charges feature, found under Cost > AWS Partner Tools > Configure. When choosing to enable Enterprise Support, we will automatically suppress all other AWS support charges, for list cost, for the account family selected.


July 20, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Customers table added to Account Hierarchy

A new tab has been added to the account hierarchy that lists all customers a user has access to. This tab is only visible to those users with the necessary permissions for managing customers. The customer list is currently a read-only view. Very soon, we will also be adding the ability to create, edit, and delete customers directly from this view.

GENERAL UPDATES

Improved the Save List of Accounts to CSV export

We have made improvements to the Save List of Accounts CSV export, which can be found on the main list of accounts page. With this update you should be able to consistently export large numbers of accounts without error.

AWS UPDATES

PartnerSysAdmin users can now rename reseller accounts

Users with PartnerSysAdmin rights now have the ability to rename the reseller accounts within their L2 customers. To take advantage of this new capability, load the reseller account whose name you would like to change and navigate to Account Settings > Edit Name.

AZURE UPDATES

Scheduled invoices will show proper converted decimal values

When scheduling an invoice using a custom currency, we will now show the full number of decimal places when viewing the parameters of that scheduled invoice. Previously we were generating the invoice using the full number of decimal places for accurate costs, but rounding to two places for display purposes.

Improved billing processing for CSP customers

We have made improvements to our billing collection for CSP accounts. For example, we removed some unneeded API calls to the Microsoft Partner Center. Moving forward, we will use the Company info to populate the customer names for reporting instead of the Billing info. Because of this, you may see some changes to the names of your customers within the Advanced Grouping report (or other places where customer names are displayed). You can change the display name by performing the following steps:

  1. Log into the Microsoft Partner Center.
  2. Load the customer whose name you would like to change.
  3. Click on the Account option.
  4. Modify the Company info.

July 7, 2020

CMx UPDATES

New “list” view of accounts in the account hierarchy

When viewing your account hierarchy, you can now toggle to a new view that displays all accounts in a table. This table includes account metadata such as provider ID, type (payer vs payee), payer ID (if applicable), and created date. Clicking on a row will open a drawer to edit the selected account.

Cost type permission is required when a role includes cost reporting permission(s)

When defining a role that includes cost reporting permissions, you must also include a permission set that specifies what cost type(s) users of that role are entitled to. The two cost type permissions are “view actual and retail cost” or “view list cost”.

AZURE UPDATES

Improved historic billing month locking behavior at ‘L2’ level

This only impacts customers using the L1/L2 configuration. There were certain situations where a customer sets an historic billing month to reload, and request the setting also be applied to the L2 reseller. However, the L2 locks before the L1 completes processing—resulting in the data not being updated within the L2. With this update, the L2 does not lock itself until L1 and L2 have both completed processing.

Updated Deallocated VM presentation within the Savings Report

The Azure Cost Savings Report will now display the monthly cost for the disks attached to the deallocated VMs within the ‘Deallocated Virtual Machines with Disks Attached’ section.


June 22, 2020

CMx UPDATES

[API] Filter list of accounts by various account properties.

The “/customer/v1/customers/{customerId}/accounts” endpoint now includes a $filter parameter that supports filtering the account list by passing in an Odata filter statement. Use this new parameter to filter your account list by provider, payer vs payee, provider identifier, etc.

AWS UPDATES

Updated CSV link location within Saved Filter Email

When enabling a Saved Filter email and requesting a CSV export of data to be included within that email, the link to download the CSV file will now be part of the email’s body. Previously that link was embedded in the attached PDF.

Added Sorting Capabilities to Custom Billing Charges

The list of Custom Billing Charges page, found within Cost > AWS Partner Tools > Configure, can now be sorted by column. A new dropdown has been implemented on the page, allowing you to select a column to sort either ascending or descending.

AZURE UPDATES

Improved Parent/Child Relationship Detection Mid-Billing Period

We have made improvements to the way the system assigns the parent/child relationship for inventory and billing accounts when an account is moved in the middle of a billing period.


June 10, 2020

CMx UPDATES

List all users, permission sets, and accounts when editing a role

Previously, when defining the contents of a role, only the top 8 results were displayed when searching for users, permission sets, or accounts. Now, the various drop down menus will show all matching results. Simply scroll to the bottom of the list to load more.

Specify that a multi-account view will include “all accounts”

When creating or editing a MAV, there is a checkbox to specify that the MAV should include all accounts for the specified provider (instead of a filtered list of accounts based on the selected attributes).

AWS UPDATES

Kinesis and KMS returned within proper region in Advanced Grouping

We resolved an issue that was resulting in some costs from Kinesis and KMS incorrectly being reported as originating from the US East (N. Virginia) region. These costs will now reflect the proper region.

Updated CSV link location within Saved Filter Email

When enabling a Saved Filter email and requesting a CSV export of data to be included within that email, the link to download the CSV file is included within the PDF attached to the message. This link has been moved from the bottom of the pdf to the top, making it easier to locate and download.

AZURE UPDATES

Added Payer Id column to List of Accounts Page

A new column has been added to the Azure List of Accounts page, showing the Payer Id for the child subscriptions. This makes it easier to identify the parent/child relationship within multi-payer customers.


May 26, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Preview the list of accounts when creating or editing a MAV

Within the Account Hierarchy, a table has been added to the create or edit multi-account view drawer that displays the list of accounts included in the MAV based on the specified criteria.

Customization page now available to admins

Administrators can now access the customization page via Settings > System Management. This allows admins to update their logo, tab icon and text, and navigation colors.

Improved account creation process

When creating a new account, a drawer opens from the right-hand side of the account hierarchy. No longer does the app navigate away to a different page for account creation. Also, upon successful creation, users will transition to the account credentialing page automatically.

AWS UPDATES

Added CSV export to Total Compliance Report

You can now generate a CSV export from the Total Compliance report, which can be found within the Compliance menu on the left-hand report navigation.

AZURE UPDATES

Updated Managed Disk without Backup Protection Best Practice check

The Managed Disk without Backup Protection Best Practice check will now properly account for situations where there is a backup of VM itself, as well as images and snapshots.


May 11, 2020

CMx UPDATES

Permission Sets and Roles lists now include descriptions.

When viewing Permission sets (via Settings => Permission Sets) or Roles (via Settings => Roles), the tables now include descriptions of each item, including your own descriptions for any custom Permission Sets or Roles you’ve created.

Account search in Account Switcher/Account Hierarchy includes all results.

Previously, when searching for accounts in the Account Switcher or Account Hierarchy, only the top 8 results were displayed. Now, the drop down will show all matching results. Simply scroll to the bottom of the list to load more.

API UPDATES

Added additional input parameters to the following calls:

  • add_custom_billing_charge_monthly_percent
  • add_custom_billing_charge_percent_all_charges
  • add_custom_billing_charge_fixed
  • edit_custom_billing_charge
  • edit_custom_billing_charge_monthly_percent
  • edit_custom_billing_charge_fixed
  • edit_custom_billing_charge_percent_all_charges

AWS UPDATES

Added CUR support for L2/Reseller partners

Now, L2 customers can run off a standalone Cost and Usage Report (CUR) or receive full CUR data passed down from the L1 account. L2’s can now take advantage of margin enhancing features such as RI Consuming Based Allocation and Savings Plan Allocation. This new functionality also makes it easier to run Proof of Concepts with prospects using their own CUR file in their own L2.

Better handling of future billing data

If you have purchased Savings Plans within your AWS account, Amazon may be writing that data to the last day of the month within the Cost and Usage Report. With this update we have improved the way our bill summary reports and emails handle this data, ensuring your data is being delivered at the appropriate time.

Added resource-level ignores to additional checks

Multiple Best Practice checks have been updated, allowing you to ignore individual resources within the check results. If utilizing this feature, you can always view and revert your ignored items by selecting the ‘Show Ignored’ option within the Best Practice report.

Added support for two new regions:

  • Africa (Cape Town)
  • Europe (Milan)

AZURE UPDATES

Improved notification when missing Storage Account permissions

If an Azure Inventory Subscription was provisioned using the Reader Role, we may not have enough access to report on all information within your Storage Accounts. We have improved our messaging for this scenario, describing which data points we were unable to report, and how you can resolve this, if you choose. You can view your notifications in the top-right corner of your account(s).


April 27, 2020

GENERAL UPDATES

Added User Creation events to audit log

When viewing the audit log, you will now be able to track when users were created within your account.

AWS UPDATES

Improved error messaging when deleting resellers linked to custom charges

There are some situations where a reseller cannot be deleted because it is linked to a custom charge. We have improved the error messaging for this scenario, instructing the user why the deletion request cannot be executed, including listing the custom charges that need to be updated.

NOTE: This only applies to customers that are using the L1/L2 configuration.

AZURE UPDATES

Added List Cost Analysis support for Azure Plan

You can now view the List Cost Analysis report within your Azure Plan accounts. These can be found within the Cost > Partner Tools > Report menu.

Improvements to Custom Charge Builder loading time

We’ve made load time improvements to the Custom Charge Builder for customers with a large number of resource tags.

Added Scale Sets to Inventory Summary

When viewing the Inventory Summary report, you will now see a row within the VM pane to list the number of Scale Sets within the subscription.


April 15, 2020

AWS UPDATES

Better descriptions for Savings Plan deallocation in List Cost Analysis

If you are using the Savings Plans deallocation feature, you will now see better descriptions of that activity when viewing your cost changes within the List Cost Analysis report. That report can be found within the Cost > AWS Partner Tools > Report menu.

AZURE UPDATES

Added support for Monthly Reservations

Reservations purchased with the monthly payment option will now be available within your account. Please note that, within the CSP RI Configuration page, Monthly RIs will only be able to be set as owned by the customer (this cannot be overwritten). This will be addressed in a future update, giving you the flexibility to choose the owner of the reservation.

Added support for VM RI Recommendations for Azure Plan

You can now view your VM RI Recommendations within your Azure Plan accounts. These can be found within the Cost > Reserved Usage menu.

Improvements to automatic customer creation

If you are using the ‘automatic customer creation’ option (found within the billing configuration menu), we will now be able to add subscriptions when a subscription with a different Id, but same name, already exists. Previously these would not be added as they were flagged as a duplicate. Now, they will be added, and the subscription Id will be appended to the name to easily identify these newly added accounts.

Updated VM Right-Sizing report with new VM sizes

We have added support for new VM sizes within the Virtual Machine Right-Sizing report, found within the Utilization > Right-Sizing menu.


March 30, 2020

AWS UPDATES

Added three new API calls:

  • inventory/get_ec2_reserved_instances
  • billing/get_profit_analysis
  • billing/get_profit_analysis_csv

AZURE UPDATES

Azure Plan billing collector improvements

We have made resiliency improvements to the billing collection process for Azure Plan accounts. This should result in more consistent updates.

Added support for Custom Usage Rates for Azure Plan

You now have the ability to create and modify Custom Usage Rates within your Azure Plan accounts. These can be managed within the Cost > Azure Partner Tools > Configure menu.

MAV configuration options for Azure Plan

When configuring Multi-Account Views (MAVs), you now have more options to choose whether to build the MAV using your Azure Plan accounts.


March 16, 2020

AWS UPDATES

Improved Best Practice Report trend graphs

The 30 day trend graphs in the Best Practice Report have been updated to better reflect the day-to-day fluctuations in the number of issues identified within each check.

AZURE UPDATES

Azure Plan: Added support for Custom Credit Memo

You can now manage custom credit memos within your Azure Plan account. To visit this feature, please go to Cost > Partner Tools > Configure.

Notifications will now properly reflect updated credentials

In situations where invalid credentials have been updated, the notifications dropdown will now properly reflect that the credentials are now valid.

Scheduled invoices will reflect proper billing period

For classic CSP accounts, scheduled invoices will now display the proper billing period instead of calendar month. Please note that you still have the ability to choose a custom billing period, if you so choose.


March 3, 2020

AWS UPDATES

Savings Plan Cost Deallocation

Savings Plan Deallocation lets you revert discounts from accounts that benefited inadvertently from Savings Plans and change the usage to On-Demand. You can enable Savings Plan Deallocation on the Configure Custom Page under the Saving Plan Cost Allocation section. Selecting this option will impact your costs in Advanced Grouping, List Cost Analysis, invoices, Saving Showback, and Summary reports.

Modified CloudTrail Alert notification assignment

If a user enables a CloudTrail alert without configuring a notification option, the application will default to delivering the alerts to the email of the user who enabled the alert.

Improvements to EDP Marketplace rounding rows

We’ve made improvements to the way we process and display rounding rows for customers that have an EDP and have costs from the AWS marketplace.

Improvements to Credit filtering in Advanced Grouping

We’ve made some improvements to the way we are hiding/showing credits within the Advanced Grouping report.

AZURE UPDATES

Improved the Save List Of Accounts To CSV export

We’ve updated the List of Accounts export to better support Azure accounts. You can download this CSV file from the main list of accounts page by clicking on the Admin Functions dropdown and selecting Save List of Accounts to CSV.


February 18, 2020

AWS UPDATES

Better Notifications When Missing Account Friendly Names

We’ve added better notifications when we are unable to collect Friendly Account Names from AWS. This notification, which will display in the top-right corner of the application, will provide instructions on how to resolve this issue.

Improvements to EC2 Instance History Reports

Multiple improvements have been made to the EC2 Instance History reports (which can be found within the Inventory > EC2 menu), providing more consistent trending data.

Added Ability to Work with Organization Region Deny Policies

If you are leveraging policies within AWS Organizations to deny access to entire regions, your account can now be configured to properly collect data from the permitted regions. To take advantage of these capabilities, please contact support.

AZURE UPDATES

Added Support for Azure Plan

CSP customers can now configure their accounts to connect, and collect data from Azure Plan. Azure Plan will be a separate account type from classic CSP. To get started you will want to credential a new CSP account, choosing Azure Plan as the Partner Center billing version. All customer data under Azure Plan will be accessible through this account, while the customers that have yet to transition will still be available under the classic account.

Improved Schedule Invoice Decimal Precision

Scheduled invoices based off of saved filters, with “show precise values” enabled, will now display the proper number of decimals in the generated invoice.


February 4, 2020

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, February 04, 2020. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Added PDF export to Total Compliance report

You can now generate a PDF export from the Total Compliance report, which can be found within the Compliance menu on the left-hand report navigation.

Improvements to Custom Best Practice Checks

Several improvements and fixes have been made to the Custom Best Practice check capabilities. Custom checks can be configured within the Security menu.

EC2 List of Reservation CSV Export Updated

The CSV export from the Cost > Reserved Usage > Inventory > EC2 > List of Reserved Usage report has been updated to better report on Upfront Fees.

Spot Usage Removed from EC2 Cost Comparison Reports

Both the EC2 Cost Comparison Summary and Cost Comparison Detail report will no longer include Spot usage in their comparisons.

AZURE UPDATES

Added Azure support to the change_monitoring/get_changes API call


January 20, 2020

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, January 20, 2020. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

API UPDATES

create_detailed_billing_grouped_filter_v2

Documentation for this call has been updated to provide clarity around which capabilities are available within each parameter.

AWS UPDATES

Custom Credits Displaying by Cost Type

Custom Credit memos will now display when filtering by List Cost within the Cost Summary reports found within the Cost > AWS Billing menu.

Messaging When Billing Month Is Awaiting AWS Finalization

The Cost > AWS Partner Tools > Files > Reprocess Billing Data menu will now inform users when a billing file is not finalized due to the invoice not yet being finalized by AWS.

Improved Drilldowns Within Inventory Summary Reports

Many of the charts within Inventory Summary reports were updated to more accurately filter on the data when drilling into a detailed report.

Multi-Account View IAM Role Report Building Improvements

Back-end performance improvements to make building the IAM Role Inventory report in large MAVs more reliable and performant.


January 07, 2020

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, January 07, 2020. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

API UPDATES

get_detailed_billing_with_grouping_by_currency

Returns better response when a request is for a query that has no data.

AWS UPDATES

Improved Payee Account With No Credentials Added Best Practice Check

Provides more accurate report on uncredentialed payee accounts during the AWS monthly rollover period. 

Performance Improvements for CloudTrail Data Collection

Improved back-end data collection infrastructure for CloudTrail that will result in faster processing.

Added the Ability to Exclude From Support Charge Calculation in Fixed Custom Charges

Added the Exclude From Support Charge Calculation checkbox to the Fixed Custom Charge type. When you go to Cost > AWS Billing > AWS Partner Tools > Configure > Custom Billing Charges, create a Fixed custom charge, and select that option, CloudCheckr will exclude the fixed charge from  the custom support charge calculation if you have enabled that feature. 

Added Messaging when Memory Metrics from Datadog is Not Configured Correctly

Added a message that identifies when CloudCheckr is trying to collect memory metrics from Datadog, but that collection is failing due to a configuration issue.

Configuration Option for RI Cost and Usage Allocation

Customers using the CUR as the source of billing data now have an option to assign RI cost and usage to the purchasing account or to the consuming account(s). The configuration setting is available in the UI on the Configure Custom Cost page or via the configure_custom_cost API.  The new options cannot be used in conjunction with RI Unsharing or with a cost basis of Blended.

Continued Savings Plans Implementation

Our team continues to make progress towards fully supporting AWS Savings Plans in our application.  You can stay up-to-date on our progress by reviewing our AWS Savings Plan topic.

AZURE UPDATES

EA Billing Collection Improvements

Improved the EA billing collection process to add resiliency and improve completion times.

Azure Inventory Ingestion Improvements 

Improved the resource inventory collection process to add resiliency and improve completion times.

Hid Cost Alerts from inventory Subscriptions

Hid cost alerts from Azure Inventory Subscriptions temporarily since the feature is not currently supported in those account types.  We will add these cost alerts back into the application in a future update once they have been properly implemented.


December 16, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, December 16, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Better error messaging when configuring the CUR

When attempting to configure the Cost and Usage Report within your account and encountering an error, you will now receive more precise messaging to help you resolve the problem. The new messages will inform you of situations such as, "Unable to locate the CUR manifest file" or "CUR Report Name cannot be empty", as well as many other responses.

Two new API calls:

  • add_custom_billing_charge_per_vm
  • add_custom_billing_charge_per_hour

December 09, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, December 09, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Updated Load Balancer Inventory Reports

Both the Summary and List of Load Balancer reports found within the Inventory > EC2 > Load Balancer menu have been updated to better report on ALBs and NLBs. The Summary report will now show the number of targets by Load Balancer type, while the Inventory report has been updated in many places to better report on Classic, ALBs, and NLBs.


November 18, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, November 18, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Added 2 new custom charge types:

  • charge per instance hour
  • charge per VM

These new custom charge types can be accessed within the Cost > AWS Billing > Configure > Custom Billing Charges. Please note that these new charge types are only available for customers that are on the AWS Cost & Usage Report.

You can learn more about these new charge types here.

Improved Unused Elastic Load Balancers Best Practice Check

This check has been updated to better report on whether ALBs or NLBs were being used.


November 04, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, November 4, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Added support for new EC2 instance types:

  • r5dn
  • r5n

October 21, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, October 21, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Added support for ALBs and NLBs to the following best practice checks:

  • Load Balancers Without Access Log Enabled
  • Under-Utilized Elastic Load Balancers
  • Over-Utilized Elastic Load Balancers

October 07, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, October 07, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Added support for ALBs to the following best practice check:

  • Elastic Load Balancers With HTTP Errors

AZURE UPDATES

Added the ability to unlock billing periods for child resellers from the parent reseller

Customers that have a tiered reseller configuration will now have the option to automatically unlock the child resellers when unlocking a billing period at the parent level. When unlocking a period within the Cost > Azure Partner Tools > Configure > Reload Usage Report, you will be presented with a pop-up asking whether you want to also unlock the child resellers as well.


September 23, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, September 23, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Updates to Assigned Credits

This update includes a significant improvement to the way we handle assigned credits, ensuring that the Advanced Grouping report will match the customer invoice.

If a credit is assigned to a Payee, that credit will now show up under all List Cost reporting, including Advanced Grouping & profit analysis. If a credit is hidden from Payees, that credit will NOT show up under all List Cost reporting including Advanced Grouping & profit analysis.

These changes will also impact how Business Support charges are determined. If a credit is hidden, it WILL NOT be included in the Business Support calculation. If it is assigned, it WILL BE included in the Business Support Calculation.

IMPORTANT: Credits will be hidden for historic months and will require a reload to be updated against these improvements.

You can find more information about this change in our  Assigned Credits FAQ.

Added new metrics to the CloudWatch Historical Export report:

  • ALB Request Count
  • NLB: Active Flow Count

Added support for ALBs and NBLs to the following Best Practice Check:

  • Elastic Load Balancers With Fewer Than Two Healthy Instances

AZURE UPDATES

Can Now Credential Gov CSP Accounts via CPV Application

To comply with the Azure CSP Security Model, we have modified the way we interact with your Gov partner center API. Moving forward, we will make requests through a Control Panel Vendor (CPV) application. To avoid an interruption with your account, you will need to update the credentials saved within your Gov CSP account(s). To update your credentials, login to your CSP account(s) and navigate to Account Settings > Azure Credentials from the left-hand navigation. From here, you will want to be sure you are on the CPV credential tab and begin the consent process.

NOTE: You only need to update your Gov CSP payer accounts. This change does not impact inventory subscriptions.

Handle subscription transfers within CSPs

When a subscription is moved from one CSP to another, the subscription is assigned a second Id, which is used for some data, while their previous Id was used for other types of data. This caused some inconsistencies with our reports. To resolve this, we will be mapping all data to the original Id, which will provide consistent cost data from the CSP to the subscription, for both current and historic data.

NOTE: If you have the ‘automatically create billing accounts’ setting enabled, you may see these subscriptions added again, with the original subscription Id. This will only be for subscriptions that have been transferred, and that have not been setup with an inventory account.


September 9, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, September 9, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

GENERAL UPDATES

Recently Viewed Reports Updated Is Now Per-User

When viewing the list of recently viewed reports, which is accessible in the left-hand navigation, you will now only see your own recently viewed reports. Previously, the list was built by whichever reports were last accessed in the account, regardless of the user accessing the reports.

AWS UPDATES

Idle Load Balancers BPC Now Supports ALBs and NLBs

The Idle Load Balancers Best Practice Check, which can be found under the Cost tab, now supports Application and Network Load Balancers, in addition to Elastic Load Balancers. All three will be reflected in the check output, identified by type.

Added Cost Explorer access to the CloudFormation Template for configuring accounts

The CloudFormation Template, which is used to provision the IAM cross-account role and required permissions, has been updated to include a new permission: ce:GetReservationUtilization

AZURE UPDATES

Updated Instructions for Adding Resource/Inventory Accounts

The steps to configure Azure Resource/Inventory accounts have been updated to ensure the user experience in the Azure portal matches the instructions, and that the proper permissions are being applied to the account.


August 27, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, August 27, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

GENERAL UPDATES

New High Security Environment Available

We now offer a high-security, fortified cloud environment, built to meet the most stringent regulatory compliance frameworks. This means faster approvals from an organization’s Information Security and Compliance teams. For Compliance Officers, there is less effort to audit compliance.

To learn more about this environment, please contact your administrative representative.

AWS UPDATES

Added Support for New EC2 Instance Types:

  • c5d.12xlarge
  • c5d.24xlarge
  • c5d.metal
  • c5n.metal

Added Support for New Region

  • AWS Middle East (Bahrain)

August 12, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, August 12, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Added Support for Cost Explorer API

We now have the ability to ingest new datapoints from AWS using their Cost Explorer API.

With this update we've begun leveraging this API, implementing some small improvements in our cost reports. Other reporting capabilities will be updated to support these new datapoints in future updates. Details of these improvements will be shared here, with each update.

To gain the benefits that this new API integration offers, please update the permission policy attached to your IAM role.  

The permission needed within your IAM policy:

ce:GetReservationUtilization

AZURE UPDATES

New API Call:

  • modify_subscription_family

July 29, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, July 29, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Removed "reserved instance applied" description from list cost

With a recent update to the way the Detailed Billing Report (DBR) is written, AWS now includes the text "reserved instance applied" in the description for any cost that includes the use of a reserved instance. Because CloudCheckr can be configured to apply reserved instances in a different manner than they were written to the DBR, this could potentially cause confusion when reviewing cost reports or invoices. To resolve this, the "reserved instance applied" description will not be displayed when viewing the description column in a report based off of List Cost.

Added support for new EC2 instance types:

  • r5a.16xlarge
  • m5d.16xlarge
  • m5a.16xlarge
  • m5.16xlarge
  • r5.8xlarge
  • m5d.8xlarge
  • r5a.8xlarge
  • r5d.8xlarge
  • r5d.16xlarge
  • m5a.8xlarge
  • m5.8xlarge
  • r5.16xlarge

July 15, 2019

AWS UPDATES

Added ALBs and NLBs to 'Unused Elastic Load Balancers" Check

In addition to supporting Classic load balancers, the 'Unused Elastic Load Balancers' best practice check now also supports Application Load Balancers (ALBs) and Network Load Balancers (NBLs).

Improvement to Custom Charge configuration

When configuring custom charges, you will now have the ability to set the custom charge to automatically inherit future usage types. Two new checkboxes have been added to the configuration options labeled 'include all current and future EC2 Box' and 'include all current and future EC2 Heavy'. With these selected, all EC2 box and/or EC2 Heavy usage types will be selected from the filter list. And, if any new Box or Heavy usage types are added in the future, those will automatically be added to the custom charge. This prevents users from having to constantly update their custom charge as new usage types are added by AWS.

Two New API Calls

* get_aws_billing_configuration

* edit_aws_billing_configuration

AZURE UPDATES

Custom Credit Memos

You now have the ability to add custom credit memos within the Cost > Azure Partner Tools > Configure menu. Credits added here will be displayed in the cost reports that reflect credits.

July 02, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, July 02, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Option to show percent-based custom charges during month or at end of month

When configuring percent-based custom charges you now have the option to have the custom charges calculated and displayed with your cost reports as the month progresses (it will be updated with each new billing update), or have the charge calculated and presented at the close of the month.

NOTE: All existing custom charges will default to showing at the end of the month. You can edit these within your AWS Partner Tools > Configure > Custom Billing Charges menu. Also, all new custom charges will default to be calculated during the month. This can be modified while you are creating the custom charge (or any point after).

For more information, please see: Custom Billing Charges


June 17, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, June 17, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

New Report: Saving Showback

The new Saving Showback report was designed with enterprise customers in mind, showing you the value you provide by buying RI’s and negotiating discounts. The report has columns showing the savings accrued by your purchased reservations along with the impact of your custom charges. These costs will be broken down by service, with the ability to filter by accounts/account families, as well as by date.

This new report is available within the Cost > AWS Partner Tools > Report menu.

New Billing and Usage Configuration Process

The Edit Billing Bucket and Cost and Usage configuration pages have been combined into a single page, which can be found under the Account Settings menu.

This new page allows you to manage the following configuration items in a single location:

  • Configure the Cost and Usage Report (CUR)
  • Set the S3 billing bucket for the Detailed Billing Report (DBR)
  • Limit AWS Accounts
  • Manage Partner-Level Settings:
    • Automatically Register Payee Accounts
    • Hide Credits from Payees

AZURE UPDATES

Added support for additional Azure Advisor checks

  • Enable Soft Delete to Protect your Blob Data
  • Enable Virtual Machine Backup to Protect your Data from Corruption or Accidental Deletion
  • Use Availability Sets for Improved Fault Tolerance
  • Add at least 1 or more endpoints to a Traffic Manager Profile
  • Enable Network Security Groups on subnets
  • Enable Advanced data security on your SQL servers
  • Provision an Azure AD administrator for SQL server
  • Enable Network Security Groups on virtual machines
  • Require secure transfer to storage account
  • Require secure transfer to storage account
  • Restrict access of Internet-facing VMs’ permissive Network Security Groups
  • Restrict access to App Services (Preview)
  • Enable DDoS protection standard
  • Install a vulnerability assessment solution on your virtual machines
  • Enable virtual machine backup to protect your data from corruption and accidental deletion
  • Close management ports on your virtual machines
  • Delete Public IP address not associated to a running Azure resource
  • Restrict access to storage accounts with firewall and virtual network configurations (Preview)
  • Enable diagnostic logs in Key Vault
  • Enable diagnostics logs in Service Bus
  • Enable diagnostics logs in Virtual Machine Scale Sets
  • Enable Active-Active gateways for redundancy


June 04, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, June 04, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Added support for i3en EC2 instances

Added support for the Hong Kong region


May 20, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, May 20, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

New Custom Charge Display Options

We have added a new configuration option when adding/editing Custom Charges within the AWS Partners menu. You will now have the ability to choose whether to have custom charges display within a service category (EC2, RDS, etc.), or as a separate service category.

Historically, discounts that spanned multiple services were combined, regardless of service category. For example a 10% charge on EC2 & RDS, was calculated as (EC2+RDS)*.10 and was given a new service category of "Custom Charge". Now, we have the ability to calculate (EC2.1)+(RDS*.10) and have those charges written to EC2 and RDS respectively, or continue to have them written to the "Custom Charge" category.

Added Support for t3a EC2 instances


May 06, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, May 06, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AZURE UPDATES

VM Launch Date Added to List of VMs Report

When viewing the List of VMs report within the Inventory module, you will now see a column option to display the Launch Date for each VM. You can also expan on any VM to see this value, which includes both the date and time that the VM was launched.


April 22, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, April 22, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

List of Load Balancers report updated to include ALBs and ELBs

The Inventory > EC2 > Load Balancers > List of Load Balancers report has been updated with a new column labeled 'Load Balancer Type'. This column will specify whether the Load Balancer is a Network or Application Load Balancer.


April 08, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, April 8, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Improved Handling of Automated EDPs

Customers that have their EDP discount automated by AWS will now have that discount automatically ingested as a credit. This allows the discount to be managed within the Assign Credits page, to show/hide or assign as desired. Customers who are not eligible to have their EDP discount modified will not be impacted by this change.

Date Selector Added to Lookup Resources

The Lookup Resources report (found within the Cost > Tags menu) has been updated to include user-defined Start and End dates. Any resources found within the selected date range will be returned.

Added Support for M5ad and R5ad EC2 Instance Types


March 25, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, March 25, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

New Advanced Grouping CSV Export Option: Chart-Only

You now have a new option when exporting data from the Advanced Grouping report into a CSV file: Chart-Only. This option will include the data from the chart as well as the summary totals, but will not include the grouping table in the output.

AZURE UPDATES

New Advanced Grouping CSV Export Option: Chart-Only

You now have a new option when exporting data from the Advanced Grouping report into a CSV file: Chart-Only. This option will include the data from the chart as well as the summary totals, but will not include the grouping table in the output.

Added Ability to Group by Week and Month to Advanced Grouping

Two new options have been added to the group by options within the Advanced Grouping report: By Week and By Month.


March 11, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, March 11, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

New Bill Prediction Method

We have re-written the algorithm that makes the monthly bill prediction, resulting in much more accurate predictions. You will see this prediction in the Cost Summary reports, such as the Single Day Summary and Billing Dashboard.

Ability to filter on Reserved Instances in Advanced Grouping Report

A new filter option has been added to the Advanced Grouping report which allows you to filter the data based on whether or not the costs originated from a Reserved Instance.

AZURE UPDATES

Ability to Aggregate by Week in Advanced Grouping

In addition to being able to aggregate the cost data by Day and Month, you now also have the ability to aggregate the data by week within the Advanced Grouping report.


February 25, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, February 25, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

GENERAL UPDATES

White Label Text Improvements

Some instances of text for white label customers has been updated for improved customer branding.

AWS UPDATES

CIS Benchmark Updates

Our CIS Benchmark report has been updated to map to CIS v1.2. These changes include re-mapping controls to a new control number.

Note that these are just cosmetic changes; the contents of these benchmarks have not been modified:

  • Control 1.9 moved from L2 to L1
  • Control 1.19 changed to 1.17
  • Control 1.22 changed to 1.20
  • Control 1.23 changed to 1.21
  • Control 1.24 changed to 1.22
  • Control 1.21 changed to 1.19
  • Control 4.3 changed to 2.9
  • Control 4.4 changed to 4.3

2 new Benchmarks (and corresponding Best Practice Checks) added:

  • 3.10: Ensure a log metric filter and alarm exist for security group changes
  • 4.4: Ensure routing tables for VPC peering are "Least access"

Update to Enterprise Support

When using the Enterprise Support option within Payee Support, we will now assign the Enterprise Support charges to all or selected accounts within your consolidated bill. This allows you to see your enterprise support charges throughout the month and have those charges allocated to the account(s) you choose.


February 11, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, February 11, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

New Report: Service Charge Breakdown

The new Service Charge Breakdown report was designed with enterprise customers in mind, showing you the value you provide by buying RI's and negotiating discounts. The report has columns showing the savings accrued by your purchased reservations along with the impact of your custom charges. These costs will be broken down by service, with the ability to filter by accounts/account families, as well as by date.

This new report is available within the Cost > AWS Partner Tools > Report menu.

Custom Charge Percent Charge by Service

In conjunction with the new Service Charge Breakdown report, we will now apply your percent-based custom charges per service. Historically, these custom charges were lumped together under a new Service named 'Custom', with no ability to see how much of the charge was from EC2, RDS, etc. Moving forward the charges will be applied to the corresponding service, but placed under a Usage Type named 'Custom'. This way you still have the ability to see your Custom Charges, but will be able to better report against spend by service.


January 28, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, January 28, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

GENERAL

JIRA Added To Integrations

You can now have your alerts and best practice check notifications delivered to your JIRA project(s) through a JIRA (beta) integration app.  This app can be configured within the Account Settings > Integrations menu.  

NOTE: This JIRA (beta) integration will be available soon.

AWS UPDATES

Improved ability to export large datasets from Advanced Grouping

If you are exporting a report in Advanced Grouping to CSV that includes grouping for EC2 Instance Id, Resource Id, or you have more than 5 groupings, a back-end process will execute and deliver your CSV via email.  This prevents long wait times when trying to process the large dataset within the browser.

Access to the GSA Service Catalog

Through the Cost > AWS Partner Tools menu you now have access to the GSA Service Catalog.  This catalog provides you with a comprehensive list of all of the products, their SKUs, and their price from AWS.   You have the ability to filter and export the data from this report.

NOTE: This catalog will be available on Friday, February 8, 2019.

Improvements to the Unused ELBs Best Practice Check

The Unused ELBs Best Practice Check has been updated to more accurately report against application load balancers.

AZURE UPDATES

New CPV Authentication Model

To comply with the new CSP Security Model Microsoft Azure will begin enforcing soon, we have modified the way we interact with your partner center API.  Moving forward, we will make requests through a Control Panel Vendor (CPV) application.  To avoid an interruption with your account, once this new model is being enforced, you will need to update the credentials saved within your CSP account(s).  To update your credentials, login to your CSP account(s) and navigate to Account Settings > Azure Credentials from the left-hand navigation.  

NOTE: You only need to update your CSP payer accounts. This change does not impact Enterprise Agreement accounts or inventory subscriptions.

Additional series added to VM Right-Sizing

The VM Right-Sizing report has been updated to include the following VM series:

  • DC-series
  • Lsv2-series
  • NVv2-series
  • NDv2-series
  • NCv3-series
  • NCv2-series


January 08, 2019

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, January 08, 2019. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next update within your account(s).

Details of the update:

AWS UPDATES

Added Multi-Select Capabilities to Filters Within the following reports:

  • RDS RI Purchase Recommendation Report
  • Redshift Reserved Node Purchase Recommendation Report
  • DynamoDB Reserved Capacity Purchase Recommendation Report
  • ElastiCache RI Purchase Recommendation Report

Previously, the filter options required the user to input text. With this update, these are now multi-select options, making it easier for the user to select the filters they want and eliminate the possibility for error.

AZURE UPDATES

Added ability to CSPs to create cost alerts by Customer

CSP customers will now have additional filtering capabilities within their cost alerts that allow them to create alerts by Customer. These alerts can be configured within the Cost > Alerts > Manager menu.


You can find older CloudCheckr release notes by selecting from below:


How did we do?