Consolidated Account Reserved Instance Management
AWS Consolidated Billing allows you to establish a single payer account for multiple AWS accounts. In addition to having only one AWS invoice, Consolidated Billing allows you to take advantage of volume discounts, and Reserved Instance hourly pricing across accounts. If you are utilizing Consolidated Billing within AWS, CloudCheckr can generate reports specific to this billing configuration to make tracking costs across accounts easier, and to help ensure you are taking advantage of the benefits of AWS Consolidated Billing.
Setting Up Your Accounts
When you add the payer account from your Consolidated family to CloudCheckr, CloudCheckr will automatically begin building Reserved Instance reports that look across all of your accounts. For these to accurately report on your AWS accounts and usage, you will need to add each of the payee accounts to CloudCheckr as well. If CloudCheckr does not have access to any of the accounts within the consolidated family, you will see a list of the inaccessible AWS accounts within the Reserved Instance reports within the payer account. It is highly recommended that you add these missing accounts for accurate reporting and recommendations.
Using the Reserved Instance Reports
CloudCheckr will build its Reserved Instance reports within all accounts. However, the data within the reports will be dependent on whether the account is the AWS Consolidated payer account or a payee account. When viewing the reports within a Payee account you will see all the data specific to that account only. You will see which Reserved Instances they purchased, which are being used by resources within that account, and any purchase recommendations based on that account's usage. To see this data across your consolidated accounts you will need to view these reports within the Payer account. When viewing the reports within the Payer account you will see totals and usage from all accounts in the consolidated family that have been added to CloudCheckr. You will know how many Reserved Instances are being utilized, even if the resources using the reservation are from a different account than the one where it was purchased. Purchase recommendations will look at your usage patterns across all of your accounts.
Reserved Instance Summary (Payer Account)
Viewing this report in the payer account provides you with an overview of your Reserved Instance usage across all of your AWS accounts. It shows you how many Reserved Instances you have purchased, how many are being used, how many are unused, and how many On-Demand instances are active. Your Reserved Instance Volume Discounts can also be tracked here. The report also provides charts showing a breakdown of your Reserved Instance usage. You'll see:
- Reserved Instances by Region
- Reserved Instances by Size
- Reserved Instances by Utilization Type
Reserved Instance Details Reports (Payer Account)
Viewing this report in the payer account provides you with details about each Reserved Instance purchased across all of your accounts. The top of the report provides you with a summary section, showing all of your Reserved Instance purchases, usage, and total upfront fees. The details report will provide you with a list of each of your Reserved Instances across all of your accounts, let you know which are fully utilized or underutilized, and provide key statistics for each, such as: days left, hourly price, utilization type, and size, availability zone, and platform for the reservations.
Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendations
CloudCheckr offers two distinct Reserved Instance purchase recommendation reports. One is based on running Instances and the other based on Frequency Distribution by time for Instance Types. The report "by instance" looks at each instance to determine if you should purchase an RI for the individual instance. The report "by frequency" looks at how many EC2 instances are running by instance type, zone, and platform, for each hour and determines the optimal Reserved Instance purchase. Most typically, in static environments in which instances are provisioned and running for longer periods of time, it is easiest to use the EC2 RI Purchase Recommendations (by Instance) report. For environments in which auto scaling is heavily used, or instances are started, stopped, and terminated regularly, it is more appropriate to use the EC2 RI Purchase Recommendations (by Frequency) report.
Purchase Recommendations by Instance (Payer Account)
This report will look at each On-Demand instance across all of your AWS accounts and analyze its hourly usage. Depending on the number of hours, per day, each On-Demand instance is running, CloudCheckr will either recommend that you purchase a Light, Medium, or Heavy Utilization Reserved Instance to ensure you make the most cost-effective choice. Or, if the instance is stopped for the majority of the time, we will recommend that you do not purchase a Reserved Instance. All costs, except Upfront Costs which are static, are based on the average running time of the instances to give you the most accurate cost prediction possible. The report is also organized by Availability Zone, Instance Type, and Platform—the three criteria needed when making your Reserved Instance purchases. This makes it easy to ensure the correct Reserved Instances are bought.
Purchase Recommendations by Frequency (Payer Account)
This report will look at your EC2 usage in each availability zone, broken down by platform and instance type. Depending on the number of hours, per day, each type of instance is running, CloudCheckr will either recommend that you purchase a Light, Medium, or Heavy Utilization Reserved Instance to ensure you make the most cost-effective choice. Or, if there is little or no activity for an instance type, we will recommend that you do not purchase a Reserved Instance. The report will also provide you with a graph showing the last 30 days of usage for that particular grouping, showing a visual representation of your usage against CloudCheckr's recommendations.
