CloudCheckr Cost Alerts

CloudCheckr's Cost Alerts will automatically notify you of changes in your spend. When triggered, the alerts will notify you via email or other method to help you ensure your costs stay under control. 

General Setup

  1. To get started, navigate to Cost > Alerts > Manager.
  2. Click + New Alert, then choose an alert type:
    • Amazon Web Services Costs or Microsoft Azure Costs
    • Amazon Web Services Costs (percent) or Microsoft Azure Costs (percent)
    • Amazon Web Services Contract Tracking
    • New Tag Values (AWS Only)
    • Amazon Web Services Network Usage
    • Enterprise Agreement Overage (Azure Only)
  3. Enter the Alert Name.
  4. Click Notifications. The Notifications box expands and presents configuration options.

Alert Setup


Use the AWS/Azure Costs alert to be notified when your costs go above a certain budget within a specified timeframe.

  1. Set budget amount and trigger threshold.

  2. Set budget period.
  3. Set filters.

  4. Select Accounts (AWS) or select Subscriptions (Azure).
  5. Click Create Alert.

Use the AWS/Azure Costs (percent) alert to be notified when your costs fluctuate by a specified percentage when compared to a previous time period.

  1. Scroll down to the Alert me section.
  2. Configure your alerts using one of the following use cases as a guideline.

    Click a text box to see the instructions for a specific use case.

    In this use case, the average running costs for the previous 30-day billing period was $2,500. We want CloudCheckr to alert us when the daily running costs increases by $100 or more above $2,500 when a cost spike is present for at least two days.

    To configure an alert that matches these conditions:

    1. Select the first check box and type 100 in the (amount per day) text field. (Callout 1)
    2. Type 2 in the When the cost spikes for__days by text field. (Callout 2)
    3. Type 30 in the compared to the average cost of the previous__days text field. (Callout 3)

    In this use case, the average running costs for the previous 30-day billing period was $2,500. We want CloudCheckr to alert us when the daily running costs increases by $100 or by 4% or more above $2,500 when a cost spike is present for at least two days.

    To configure an alert that matches these conditions:

    1. Select the first check box and type 100 in the (amount per day) text field. (Callout 1)
    2. Type 2 in the When the cost spikes for__days by text field. (Callout 2)
    3. Type 30 in the compared to the average cost of the previous__days text field. (Callout 3)
    4. Select the second check box and type 4 in the (percent average text field. (Callout 4)

    In this use case, the average running costs for the previous 30-day billing period was $2,500. We want CloudCheckr to alert us when the daily running costs increases by 4% or more above $2,500 when a cost spike is present for at least two days.

    To configure an alert that matches these conditions:

    1. Type 2 in the When the cost spikes for__days by text field. (Callout 1)
    2. Type 30 in the compared to the average cost of the previous__days text field. (Callout 2)
    3. Select the second check box and type 4 in the (percent average text field. (Callout 3)

    In this use case, the average running costs for the previous 30-day billing period was $2,500. We want CloudCheckr to alert us when the daily running costs increases by $100 or by 4% or more above $2,500 when a cost spike is present for at least two days.

    However, we only want CloudCheckr to alert us when the change in cost goes above the percentage average by $75—this way, we won't receive unwanted notifications for every small incremental cost change.

    To configure an alert that matches these conditions:

    1. Type 2 in the When the cost spikes for__days by text field. (Callout 1)
    2. Type 30 in the compared to the average cost of the previous__days text field. (Callout 2)
    3. Select the second check box and type 4 in the (percent average text field. (Callout 3)
    4. Type 75 in the With a minimum cost change of $ text field. (Callout 4)
  3. Select how you will monitor costs.
    • By Account (AWS) or by Subscription (Azure) — the alert will look at all the costs as a whole.
    • By Service — the alert will look at costs grouped by service.
    • By Specific Tag — the alert will look at costs grouped by a user-defined tag.
  4. Choose your cost type (AWS only).
  5. Click Create Alert.

Use the Contract Tracking alert to be notified when you costs exceed or are below a certain threshold. This is especially useful when you want to ensure you have used all of a committed budget by a certain date in order to avoid wasted funds, or penalties for not spending the contract-specified amount.
  1. Set the budget for the billing period.
  2. Set the trigger for exceed threshold.
  3. Set the trigger for under threshold.
  4. Set the budget period.
  5. Choose filters (optional).
    • No Filter (default)
    • Filter by tags
    • Use a Saved Filter
  6. Choose accounts (optional ? all by default).
  7. Click Create Alert.

Use this alert to be notified of any new tag values for a specified tag key. This will help you be aware of any newly-created resources that do not follow already-existing tagging strategies.
  1. Enter the tag key.
  2. Click Create Alert.

Use this alert to be notified when your data transfer costs exceed a specified amount.

  1. Set the Usage Type threshold.
    Select either Network In or Network Out.
    Select a greater than threshold in bytes.
  2. Set the Service.
  3. Set the Account.
  4. Click Create Alert.

Use this alert to be notified before your Enterprise Agreement balance runs out.

  1. Enter a number to be notified N days before your balance runs out.
  2. Click Create Alert.

Editing Your Alerts

  1. Go to Cost > Alerts > Manager.
  2. Click an alert to edit it. The alert's configuration window opens.
  3. You can enable/disable an alert via the slider.
  4. Click to delete the alert.

    5.  

    Results

    You'll receive triggered alerts through:

    • any of your configured notification methods (Slack, Amazon SNS, etc.).
    • the Results screen, located at Cost > Alerts > Results, where you'll find searchable results stored for the life of your CloudCheckr account.

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