CloudCheckr Updates 2015

December 17, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, December 17, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

New Cost Savings report
The Cost Savings report (BETA version) is designed to demonstrate the possible savings by following the Best Practice report for Cost. You can find this report at the top of the report navigation, above the Best Practice report.

Enhancements to Custom Billing Charges
You now have 3 separate options when adding Custom Billing Charges into CloudCheckr.

  • Add a percent discount or premium for all charges – modifies each individual charge in the Detailed Billing Report by a specific percent.
  • Add a monthly percent charge or credit – creates an additional single charge or credit in the Detailed Billing Report that is a specific percent of the monthly bill. NOTE: This also allows you to create charge and/or credit tiers.
  • Add a fixed charge or credit – creates an additional single charge or credit in the Detailed Billing Report that is a specific amount.

You can manage your Custom Billing charges under the Cost > AWS Partner Tools menu.

Advanced Grouping Report – Include Untagged no longer relies on saved filters
Moving forward the ‘Include untagged items’ check box can now be used without the need of a saved filter.

New Relic Plugin Re-Enabled
The New Relic Plugin has been corrected and re-enabled. This can be managed within the Settings > Plugin for New Relic menu within each account.

Added Inventory reports for CloudHSM
Added Summary and Details reports for CloudHSM, which can be found under the Inventory menu.

Added Inventory reports for EC2 Container Service
Added Summary and Details reports for EC2 Container Service, which can be found under the Inventory menu.

Display/Export tags update
We will now display and export Resource Tags for the following reports, which can be found within the Inventory > EC2 menu.

  • List of EBS Volumes
  • List of EBS Snapshots
  • List of EC2 Load Balancers

Added CloudTrail Summary Report for Aggregated Multi-Account Views
If you have a multi-account view in CloudCheckr configured to pull in aggregated CloudTrail logs, CloudCheckr will build a CloudTrail Summary report based on that aggregated data. You can view this within your multi-account view within the Security > CloudTrail > Aggregate menu.

Multi-Account View CloudTrail Alerts Will Run in Tagged Accounts
If you create CloudTrail alerts within the Alerts > CloudTrail menu in a multi-account view, CloudCheckr will run those alerts within each account that is part of that multi-account view. This will allow you to create a single alert that can run in multiple accounts (preventing you from having to create an alert in each account).

AWS Config reports exports
We have added the ability to export to CSV/PDF for Security > AWS Config > Resource Changes and Configuration History reports.

New accounts will no longer default to Payer
If we do not have credentials or have not yet identified if a newly added account is a Payer or Payee we will default the type to be Unknown.

Added CSV export to the CloudTrail Alerts screen

Redesigned the CloudTrail List of Trails report
The CloudTrail List of Trails report will now display in grid format. Filtering and column options have also been added to the report.

Added Ignore Capabilities to CloudTrail Alerts
You can now ignore certain parameters of CloudTrail Alerts to help you eliminate noise and only receive the alerts that are important to you. You can ignore regions, IAM users, events, and/or IP Addresses for each alert. You will get a link in each CloudTrail Alert email to manage these. They can also be managed within the Alerts > CloudTrail > Manage screen, at the bottom of each alert.

Improved the AWS Credits Summary Report and Export
AWS Account ID has been added to this report and export.

Improved Savings Analysis Report
We have removed the cost type drop down and will now display Savings Analysis based on List and Unblended cost only. We have also added an additional Net Savings column.

Improved Perimeter Assessment Export

API Updates

  • new: method: add_accountV2 – This will return the Id of the created account
  • new parameter: use_cc_account_id – can be used in place of the parameter use_account

1 New Best Practice Checks

  • Previous Generation Redshift Node Should Be Migrated

November 24, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, November 24, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Consolidated CloudTrail Alert Emails
CloudCheckr will now consolidate the events from each CloudTrail alert into a single email, showing a maximum of 15 events, every 15 minutes per alert. Previously, each event would be sent in a single email. This will allow you to still be notified immediately if an important event occurs within your AWS account, but drastically cut down on the number of emails you receive from CloudCheckr.

Added additional functionality to Custom Billing Charges
When adding a new Custom Billing Charge you now have the ability to add percent increase/decreases, as well as have recurring monthly charges. Custom Billing Charges can be managed within the Cost > AWS Partner Tools menu.

Added DNS resolution & DNS hostnames to VPC Report
There are now two new columns added to the Security > VPC > List of VPCs report showing DNS resolution and DNS hostnames.
IMPORTANT: you must include “ec2:DescribeVpcAttribute” in your IAM policy for CloudCheckr to report on these values.

Payee List Cost Accounts
When designating an account as a List Cost Payee CloudCheckr will ensure that all costs shown in the account, including bill emails and alerts, are based on List Cost. You can choose which accounts to set as Payee List Cost Accounts within the Cost > AWS Partner Tools menu.

October 26, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, October 26, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Re-organized the Alert menu for better usability
The Alert menu has been separated into Cost, Utilization, and CloudTrail alert subcategories. Each will now have a Manager and Results screen. The Manager is where you can create new alerts as well as manage those you have already-created. The Results page is where you can see the results for related triggered alerts.

Will now recognize new payee accounts quickly
When adding new payee accounts into CloudCheckr, it will now try to verify, upon creation, whether it is a payee of an already-added payer account. This will allow the payee/payer relationship to be reflected quickly on the list of accounts page.

Redesigned the configure CloudTrail Aggregate page
CloudCheckr allows you to add your aggregated CloudTrail buckets to multi-account views within the Security > CloudTrail > Aggregated S3 Buckets > Configure menu. This configuration page has been completely redesigned to make it easier to add and manage your aggregated buckets.

Added summary details to the List of RDS Reserved DB Instances report
The List of RDS Reserved DB Instances, found under the Cost > Reserved Usage > RDS menu, now has a summary table.

Added the ability to edit your own CloudCheckr user
Administrative users can now manage their own CloudCheckr login from the users page. This allows you to manage whether your login can authenticate using SSO and/or CloudCheckr.

Added CSV Export to the Tagging Rules report
A CSV export has been added to the Tagging Rules report, allowing you to pull out your list of already-created alerts. This can be found under the Cost > Tags > Tagging Rules.

Added Build Summary Chart functionality to List of RDS DB Instances report
Within the Inventory > RDS > List of RDS DB Instances report you can now build summary charts in the report.

Added Total Instances Unused column to List of EC2 Reserved Instances report
A new column has been added to the List of EC2 Reserved Instances report, allowing you to quickly identify the number of unused reserved instances for each of your purchased RIs. You can find this report under Cost > Reserved Usage > EC2.

Improved CSV export for the List of EC2 Reserved Instances report
The CSV export from the List of EC2 Reserved Instances report will now make it easier to identify the instances CloudCheckr has identified as matches for your reservations.

Improved the List of IAM Users CSV export
The CSV export from the Inventory > List of IAM Users report will now include the credentials report information.

2 New API Calls

  • get_detailed_billing_file
  • add_mav_account

2 New Best Practice Checks

  • Allow Users To Change Their Own Password
  • Convert to RDS SQL Server Web Edition

September 28, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, September 28, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added the ability to filter CloudTrail Alerts by Response and/or Request Parameters
When creating or enabling CloudTrail alerts within the Alert > CloudTrail menu, you know how the option to filter these alerts by their response and/or request parameters. This allows you a further level of alert filtering beyond just the CloudTrail event name.

Added the ability to ignore Amazon IP Addresses in CloudTrail Alerts
You now have the ability to completely ignore any events originating from Amazon IP Addresses when creating or enabling CloudTrail alerts. This is especially helpful for alerts that track Root account usage, as you can now fully eliminate being alerted by Amazon system activity.

New RDS RI Purchase Recommendation report for Current Gen pricing
Within the Cost > Reserved Usage > RDS menu, you’ll see the new Purchase (Current Gen) report. This report is designed to provide RDS RI Purchase Recommendations using the new Partial, No Upfront, and All Upfront payment options.

New RDS Comparison Detail report
Also within the Cost > Reserved Usage > RDS menu, you’ll see a Comparison Detail (Current Gen) report. This report shows you the various pricing options offered by Amazon for each of your running RDS DB Instances.

Billing Data Checked dropdown will now tell you when the monthly rollover is finalized
The Billing Data Checked dropdown at the top of CloudCheckr within the green bar will now notify you when the previous month’s billing data is finalized by Amazon. For example, once the DBR is finalized and the data is fully processed by CloudCheckr you will see a message such as: September 2015 AWS Bill is finalized and fully loaded into CloudCheckr. This lets you know that you are free to run your invoicing and monthly cost reports.

Improved Improperly Tagged Resources report filtering and CSV export
The Improperly Tagged Resources report, found under the Cost > Tags menu, has seen improvements made to its date filtering options. The CSV export has also been improved, providing better data organization.

Added the ability for payer accounts to reload their DBR for any month
Users now have the ability to reload the cost data from their Detailed Billing Report (DBR) in CloudCheckr for any month, at any time. This option can been seen under the Reload DBR report within the Cost > AWS Partner Tools menu. You will see a list of each month you have a DBR available from Amazon and can choose which months you would like to reprocess.

Added the ability to create a payee DBR and deliver to a user-defined S3 bucket
In a master payer account in CloudCheckr you now have the ability to generate a Detailed Billing Report (DBR) based on a payee account’s data and have that automatically delivered to a user-defined S3 bucket. This DBR copy will be updated each time Amazon makes an update to the cost data. You can find this option within the Cost > AWS Partner Tools menu.

Added a Save as CSV button to the main list of accounts page
The main list of accounts page now has a save as CSV button which allows you to export all of your accounts into a CSV file.

Improved the CSV export of the Historic Monthly Billing Summary report
Missing data points from the Historic Monthly Billing Summary report have now been added to the CSV export.

Added Public IP Address to the New Public Resources Alert email
The New Public Resources Alert email, which can be configured within the Alerts > Builder menu, will now include the Public IP Address for the public resources.

Added additional credential details to the List of IAM Users report
The List of IAM Users report, found within the Inventory menu, will now include additional details about the IAM user’s credentials.

8 New Best Practice Checks

  • CloudTrail Include Global Services Not Enabled
  • CloudTrail Include Global Services Enabled In Multiple Regions
  • Redshift Databases Without CloudWatch Alarm For Disk Usage
  • Buckets That Allow Authenticated Users to Access CloudFront Log Files
  • Buckets That Allow Authenticated Users to Access CloudTrail Log Files
  • Buckets That Allow Authenticated Users to Access Billing Report Log Files
  • Buckets That Allow Authenticated Users to Access S3 Log Files
  • Number Of ElastiCache Clusters That Are Not Isolated Within A VPC

September 3, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, September 03, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Redesigned the CloudTrail Alerts Results report
The CloudTrail Alerts Results page has been redesigned, providing an easier to read layout as well as more-advanced filtering options.

Added Threshold options to CloudTrail Alerts
You now have the ability to set thresholds for your CloudTrail alerts. You can configure CloudCheckr to only send alerts when a user-defined number of events occur within a user-defined time period. This allows you to receive unauthorized console login attempts alerts when more than 5 failed logins occur over a 2 minute period (instead of receiving an email for every failed login attempt).

Added Request and Response Parameters to CloudTrail Alert emails
Emails triggered from CloudTrail Alerts will now include the Request and Response parameters from the CloudTrail log file.

Added CSV exports to these reports:

  • RDS List of Reserved Instances report in multi-account views
  • RDS Utilization Details report
  • CloudCheckr Users page
  • CloudWatch Alarms report

Marketplace Cost Summary report has been improved
A table at the top of the Marketplace Cost Summary report now shows the total Marketplace costs for the selected timeframe. This report can be found under Cost > Spend Analysis > Marketplace.

Added the ability to export the AWS Detailed Billing Report
Under the Cost > AWS Billing menu you will now see a report named “DBR Export”. This report allows you to choose any historic month that has a detailed billing report (DBR) and download that csv file directly from CloudCheckr.
NOTE: This report is currently only available to CloudCheckr admin users.

Added Subject and Description free form text boxes to the Invoice Generator
When generating invoices in CloudCheckr you now have the ability to add a subject and description to the invoice. The text you enter here will display at the top of the exported invoice. This allows you to enter invoice numbers or other text you’d like to display on the invoice.

Added filtering options to the Reserved Instance Mapping screen
The Reserved Instance Mapping report now has filtering capabilities, allowing you to narrow your list of reservations by several factors, including availability zone or instance type. This report can be found under Cost > AWS Partner Tools in master payer accounts.

Added option for proportional payee amortization
This setting, which can be managed under Settings > Detailed Billing Bucket, provides a different way to calculate amortization in CloudCheckr reports. If selected, this will multiply amortization by a proportionality of: Total Hours Running For an Account / Total Hours Running for the consolidated billing family.
NOTE: this setting will apply to all of your Accounts within CloudCheckr.

Added the ability to copy CloudTrail alerts
You can now copy the CloudCheckr pre-built CloudTrail alerts and create new alerts matching all criteria. This allows you to easily tweak or modify the parameters of the pre-built alerts (which cannot be modified). To copy an alert, find an alert you would like to copy, click on it to expand and view its details, and click the Copy button at the bottom.

August 14, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, August 14, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added Reserved Instance Mapping
Reserved Instance Mapping allows users to assign a purchased EC2 reserved instance to a running EC2 instance. This report can be found under Cost > AWS Partner Tools will only make an impact when viewing List Cost in CloudCheckr reporting.

Added Inventory reporting for CloudWatch Alarms
CloudCheckr now offers a CloudWatch Alarm summary and details report under the Inventory menu.
NOTE: You must add “CloudWatch: DescribeAlarms” permissions to your CloudCheckr IAM policy for these reports to populate.

Added timestamp for last billing report update from AWS
At the top of your reports, where CloudCheckr shows the last time your billing data was checked, you will now be able to see the timestamp for the last time AWS updated your detailed billing reports.

Added several new built-in CloudTrail Alerts
Under Alerts > CloudTrail > Manager CloudCheckr now offers several more pre-configured CloudTrail alerting options.

Added CloudTrail Alerts to multi-account views
Your multi-account views now have an Alerts menu where you can configure CloudTrail alerts at this level. This allows you to create alerts across your aggregated CloudTrail log data.

Added Common Searches for Cost
Under the Cost > AWS Billing menu you’ll now find a Common Searches report. This allows you to quickly and easily zero in on commonly queried data sets, such as costs by account, or costs for specific services.

Added Common Searches for Security Groups
Under the Security > Security Group menu you’ll now find a Common Searches report. This report allows you to find security groups that match specific criteria, such as groups that allow database access from all IP Addresses, or groups that allow more than port 80/442 from all IP Addresses.

Added child filters to List of EC2-VPC Security Groups
The List of EC2-VPC Security Groups, found under the Security > Security Group menu, now has a child filter option which allows you to zero in on security groups that have specific configurations.

Added historic search capabilities to the Improperly Tagged Resources report
The Improperly Tagged Resources report now has a date selection option, allowing you the capability to perform historical searches on the data.

Added new filtering capabilities to the Improperly Tagged Resources report
The Improperly Tagged Resources report now allows you to filter the resources down to those that are active, inactive, or either.

Improvements to the Custom Billing Charges screen
The Custom Billing Charges screen, found under Cost > AWS Partners, has been cleaned up and simplified to make adding custom charges easier.
NOTE: Custom charges will only display when generating cost reports using List Cost.

Improved CSV exports from the Security Permissions report
CSV exports from the Security Permissions report now include the name of the resource in the export title and will contain IAM information when exporting S3 buckets. This report can be found under the Security menu.

List of Accounts page will now identify account with invalid credentials
The List of Accounts page will now display a yellow warning sign if an account that has been added contains invalid credentials.

July 21, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, July 21, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Improvements to the Account List page
The list of accounts page has been improved to allow for column sorting, saving which columns you’d like to view, easier to view credential issues, and more responsive filtering.

Security Permissions report expanded to cover EC2
The Security Permissions report (found under Security menu) now supports EC2 instances in addition to S3 buckets. This report provides you with a comprehensive set of permissions and policies for your resources.

Notes section added under Settings/Edit Name
You can now add account-specific notes to each of the accounts you’ve created within CloudCheckr. These notes, which can be viewed by any User or Admin with access to the account, can be added and managed under the Settings > Edit name menu.

SNS Topics incorporated into Perimeter Assessment report
The Perimeter Assessment report now reports on any publicly accessible SNS Topics that exist within your account. This report can be accessed within the Security menu.

Use saved filters from Advanced Grouping in the Invoice Generator
You can now generate invoices based on the saved filters you’ve create within the Advanced Grouping report.
Note: When creating an invoice using a Saved Filter, it will ignore the accounts associated with the selected customers in the invoice generator and instead match the data, and accounts, from the saved filter.

Added Last Used to the List of IAM Users report
The List of IAM Users report will now include a value showing the last time the IAM user accessed the AWS account. This report can be found under Inventory > IAM > List of Users.

New Custom Billing Charges
You now have the ability to add custom charges, or suppress already-existing charges, within your billing data which will be reflected in the all CloudCheckr cost reports when viewing List price. This feature is only available within Payer accounts under the AWS Partner Tools menu.
NOTE: This feature is currently in Preview.

New Account Families
Account Families allows you to map together AWS account and then generate List prices as if that family was a consolidated bill. This allows for accurate invoice and cost generation for more complex situations – such as a customer with 5 AWS accounts. In this case, that single customer should get the benefit of cross-account RI usage, tier pricing, volume RI pricing, etc. You can your Account Families within Payer accounts under the AWS Partner Tools menu.

3 new API methods for WorkSpaces

  • inventory/get_resources_workspaces_summary
  • inventory/get_resources_workspaces_details
  • inventory/get_resources_workspaces_directories

Best practice check “Previous Generation EC2 Instances Should Be Migrated” updated for newest instance families

8 New Best Practice Checks:

  • RDS Instance With No CloudWatch Alarm For RDS Disk Usage
  • Redshift Cluster less than 1 GB Of Free Storage
  • Redshift Cluster less than 1 MB Of Free Storage
  • Redshift Cluster less than 10% Of Free Storage
  • Idle DynamoDb Tables
  • Unused Workspaces
  • Failed Logins in WorkSpaces
  • WorkSpaces With Unhealthy State

June 23, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, June 23, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Redesigned List of Accounts page & added Account Search
The list of accounts page has been completely redesigned. You can now choose to show or hide Multi-Account Views, Payee accounts, and/or Payer accounts. The list of accounts will include the AWS Account Id, its friendly name, and its payer account (assuming it has one). You can also search for specific accounts by name and/or Id.

Ability to choose which accounts from billing files to download
When adding a consolidated payer account to CloudCheckr you can now choose which account(s) from the AWS detailed billing report you would like to have added to CloudCheckr. CloudCheckr will only process costs from the account(s) you choose. This setting can be managed under Settings > Detailed Billing Bucket.

Made several improvements to the Invoice Generator

  • Ability to schedule PDF invoices to be emailed monthly
  • Apply your AWS Credits to Customers
  • Can export all (or multiple) invoices at once and have those emailed to you in whichever format you’d like
  • You can now delete your created Customers

Improvements to the Improperly Tagged Resources Report Email
The data in the email has been reorganized to make it easier to read and understand large datasets. This email can be enabled/disabled under Settings > Email Settings.

Added several new reports for the AWS WorkSpaces service

  • WorkSpaces Spend Analysis Summary Report
  • WorkSpaces List of Directories Report (also added to MAV)
  • WorkSpaces CloudWatch metrics to CW Historical Export
  • Custom WorkSpaces reports can be created and saved within Inventory > Custom Reports

Added Summary tables to several Inventory details Reports
These tables will give you a total count of resources and other important statistics, depending on the service.

Map Exact function added to Tag Mapping
When adding custom tag mappings you can now choose to “Map Exact” on the tag key and/or value. This will have CloudCheckr auto-add the appropriate regex to ensure an exact match when mapping.

Added CSV export to Security Permissions report

Ability to suppress $0 cost rows in the Detailed Billing Summarization Report

New API call to query Reserved Instance Amortization Report

3 new Best Practice checks

  • Redshift Clusters in Maintenance Mode
  • Redshift Cluster Without Data-At-Rest Encrypted
  • Redshift Unhealthy Clusters

June 2, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, June 2, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Edit Email Addresses in Admin Email Settings page
Admin users have a “Configure Emails” button on the list of accounts page which allows for the management of the emailed reports for all accounts in a single view. This menu now allows you to edit/add/delete email recipients for each account.

Improved email for Improperly Tagged Resources
The Improperly Tagged Resources email has been improved for better data presentation. It also now includes the IAM User that launched the improperly tagged resource. This email can be enabled/disabled within the Email Settings menu.

Invoice Generator – Tie Customers to Multiple Accounts
The Invoice Generator, found under Cost > Partner Tools with Payer Accounts, now allows you to create Customers that combine the data from multiple AWS accounts. If you have a customer with multiple AWS accounts you can now create a single customer in the Invoice Generator, that rolls up the data from whichever accounts you’d like into a single invoice.

Configuration screen for service limits
Within the Settings > Service Limits page you can now enter your custom service limits for VPCs per region, EC2 Reserved Instances per region, IAM Groups per account, etc.

Ability to clone CloudCheckr Users
This feature allows you to take the configuration of an already-created CloudCheckr user and create new users with the same configuration. To clone a user, navigate to the Users page, load the user you would like to clone, click the Copy button at the bottom of the page and enter the email address(es) for the new user(s).

Ability to create multiple CloudCheckr users at once
When creating new users in CloudCheckr you can enter multiple email addresses, separated by comma. The configurations set during user creation will apply to all users added.

WorkSpaces reports added to Inventory
Inventory in general accounts, and Multi-Account Views, will now have a WorkSpaces Summary and List of WorkSpaces report.

New Reports added to Multi-Account Views

  • SQS Reports
  • SES Reports
  • AWS Config Reports
  • Route53 Reports
  • Kinesis Reports
  • SimpleDB Reports
  • Data Pipeline Reports

Bookmark improvements to Advanced Grouping
If you build a report in Adv. Grouping (under Cost > AWS Billing) you can save and/or share the bookmark from that report. That will allow you, or the user you share the bookmark link with, to access that dataset directly. This works with saved filters as well as data built ‘on-demand’.

New report: Tag Mapping – Splitting
This new report allows you to split the costs from your detailed billing data and have it applied across multiple tags. This can be used to distribute costs across multiple projects (each designated with a unique tag), or to allocate costs as needed. You can split costs based on Tags or on properties, such as Account, Region, AZ, Service, Operation, Usage Type, or Resource Id. This report can be found under Cost > Tags (from Detailed Billing).

List price – Handles RI Volume discounts
When generating reports based on List Price in Cloudcheckr, Reserved Instance Volume Discounts will be accounted for.

4 New API Calls for IAM Inventory Reports

  • inventory/get_resources_iam_users
  • inventory/get_resources_iam_groups
  • inventory/get_resources_iam_roles
  • inventory/get_resources_iam_policies

10 New Best Practice Checks

  • S3 Buckets With Any Permission Set To Authenticated Users Group
  • S3 Buckets With ‘Edit Permissions’ Permission Set To Authenticated Users Group
  • S3 Buckets With ‘List’ Permission Set To Authenticated Users Group
  • S3 Buckets With ‘Upload/Delete’ Permission Set To Authenticated Users Group
  • S3 Buckets With ‘View Permissions’ Permission Set To Authenticated Users Group
  • S3 Sensitive Objects Stored for Authenticated Users Group
  • S3 Buckets That Allow Everyone Access to CloudTrail Log Files
  • S3 Buckets That Allow Everyone Access to Billing Reports
  • S3 Buckets That Allow Everyone Access to S3 Log Files
  • S3 Buckets That Allow Everyone Access to CloudFront Log Files

May 11, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, May 11, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added Filter by Tag to the Invoice generator
When exporting your invoices from the Invoice Generator, you can now filter the invoice by tags. To filter the invoice by tag, click the Advanced Options button on the Create Invoice tab of the Invoice Generator.

Scheduling in the Invoice Generator
You can now set your invoices to be automatically emailed on a user-defined day each month, as well as the specific invoice and cost type to be delivered. You can schedule invoices within the Create Invoice tab of the Invoice Generator by clicking the ‘schedule’ button.
NOTE: Scheduling currently only supports CSV formatted invoices.

New Find AWS Resource button from Account Page
The list of Accounts page, where are you brought when you login to CloudCheckr, now has a button that allows you to search for specific resource IDs. This is particularly useful for customers with many AWS accounts that want to know which account an EC2 Instance, S3 Bucket, EMR Cluster, or RDS Database Instance resides within.

Added export for AWS MarketPlace Cost Summary report
You can now export the data from the AWS MarketPlace Cost Summary report, which can be found within the Cost > Spend Analysis > Marketplace menu.

Emailed reports now have custom logos
Your custom logos will now display in each of your automated CloudCheckr report emails.

Added Bookmarks capabilities for reports
You can now bookmark the direct links to each report within any of your CloudCheckr accounts. These bookmarks will be available on the list of Accounts page, allowing you direct access to frequently visited reports.

Added UI status to see last time Billing Data was updated
Each account will now show you, in the green bar at the top of the page, the last time CloudCheckr checked for billing updates from Amazon.

Reworked EMR reports to better manage large number of Clusters
The Elastic MapReduce reports now update hourly for more frequent, efficient reporting.
NOTE: You need to add the following permission to your IAM policy for CloudCheckr to report on your EMR data: “elasticmapreduce:ListInstances”. You can always see our full recommended IAM policy here: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/complete-iam-policy/

UI improvements to DBR Summarization report
The DBR Summarization Report, found under Cost > AWS Billing, has been improved to make report generation, saving filters, and viewing report history easier.

Allow basic user to create CloudCheckr API Keys (no longer an Admin feature)
Previously only Admin users had the ability to generate API Access Keys. This function has been enabled for all user-types.

Added filters for List of Network ACLs report
You can now filter your Network ACLs by several variables. This report can be found under Security > VPC > Network ACLs

3 New reports added to Multi-Account Views:

  • CloudFront Summary
  • List of CloudFront Stacks
  • RDS Reserved Instance Summary

2 New Best Practice Checks:

  • Redshift Reserved Instance Possible Mismatch
  • New Account Added to Consolidated Bill

April 17, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, April 17, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Improved managing customers in the Invoice Generator
Managing customers is no longer in a pop-up, making it faster and easier to view and update customer information within the report.

Tagging Rules filtering by Account ID
When building Tagging Rules you can now dictate which account(s) those rules should be applied to. The Improperly Tagged Resources Report will also allow you to filter the resource list by AWS Account ID. These reports can be found under Cost > AWS Billing > Tags.

List of Reserved Instances shows Account ID of matched EC2 Instances
The EC2 List of Reserved Instances, found under Cost > Reserved Usage > EC2, contains a table listing the EC2 instances that CloudCheckr has matched with the Reservation. This table now includes the AWS Account ID where the instance resides.

12 New Best Practice Checks

  • Redshift Reserved Nodes That Are Expiring In The Next 7 Days
  • Redshift Reserved Nodes That Are Expiring In The Next 30 Days
  • Redshift Reserved Nodes Purchase Recommendations
  • Redshift Reserved Node Payment Failed
  • Redshift Reserved Node Payment Pending
  • Redshift On-Demand Nodes Not Using Reserved Instance Pricing
  • Idle Redshift Nodes
  • Redshift Reserved Nodes Not Utilized
  • EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Made
  • RDS Reserved Instance Purchase Made
  • ElastiCache Reserved Instance Purchase Made
  • Redshift Reserved Instance Purchase Made

March 26, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, March 26, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

China costs now display with ¥ instead of $
Costs from AWS accounts that are hosted within the China (Beijing) region, costs will properly display with ¥ instead of $.

New metrics pushing to the AppDynamics extension
Added the option to push CloudWatch metrics to AppDynamics.

Added more flexible currency conversion to the Invoice Generator
The Invoice Generator now has a text box where you can enter whatever type of currency you wish for your invoices.

Added Suppress capability to the Invoice Generator
When editing customer info within the Invoice Generator, you can generate a full list of their current charges and then choose which of those charges to suppress from the invoice. You will have the option to permanently suppress a charge, or only for the current invoice.

Added Email capability for Multi-Account views for Best Practices report and Daily Consolidated Billing Summary
Within each Multi-Account View’s Settings menu you will now see an Email Settings option. In this menu you can enable a daily Best Practice and Daily Consolidated Billing Summary email to be delivered from the Multi-Account view. This is disabled by default.

Added Support Cases report in Multi-Account Views
The Support Cases Summary and List of Cases reports have been added to Multi-Account Views. These can be found under Inventory > Support Cases.

Added export for Perimeter Assessment report
The Perimeter Assessment report (found under the Security menu) now has export options for both CSV and PDF.

Added export option to the Savings Analysis report
The Savings Analysis report (found under Cost > Partner Tools) now has export options for both CSV and PDF.

Fixed option for “Amortize Reserved Instance Cost” Billing reports
Choosing to Amortize Reserved Instance costs within the Bill Summary reports (under Cost > AWS Billing) should return the proper cost data now.

Added filtering in the Inventory IAM Users, Roles, and Groups report
These IAM reports under the Inventory menu now have filtering options to allow you to search for specific datasets.

Enhanced UI for Tagging Rules
The Tagging Rules interface (under Cost > Tags) has been updated to make creating tagging rules easier.

Enhancements to Tag Mapping
You now have the option to map costs to tags using multiple properties within a single mapping. Just note that when adding multiple properties in a single mapping it will only map costs that match ALL properties. If you add a property for Region US East and a second for Region EU West, that will return no costs. In that scenario you would want to add those as two separate mappings, one for US East and one for EU West.

New API call get_publicly_accessible_resources
This new API call will export the publicly accessible endpoints from Ec2 Instances, Rds Instances, Redshift Clusters, and S3 Buckets. You can find documentation on this new call here: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/cloudcheckr-api-reference/

Two new Best Practice Checks:

  • Previous Generation ElastiCache Nodes Should Be Migrated
  • New Reserved Instance Purchase Made

March 3, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Wednesday, March 3, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added initial support for China (Beijing) Region (Preview Mode)
CloudCheckr now supports the AWS China (Beijing) Region. When configuring a new account that is hosted in the China region you will need to select the “Credentials are for a China account” checkbox.

Added IAM User to the CloudTrail Alerts email
CloudTrail alerts will now list the IAM username in the event details.

Added Select All boxes to Admin Email Settings page
Admin users have a “Configure Emails” button on the list of accounts page which allows for the management of the emailed reports for all accounts in a single view. This menu now has Select All boxes for each email type so they can be enabled/disabled en mass.

Ability to use other currencies in the Invoice Generator
The Invoice Generator now allows you to choose non-USD currency for its output.

Added option to configure emails to get CloudCheckr system notification messages
The list of accounts page now displays an Email icon to the right of “What’s New”. This is where you can dictate which email address(es) should receive CloudCheckr system notification messages and release notes.

Improvements to Improperly Tagged Resources report
The Improperly Tagged Resources report (found Under Cost > Tags from Detailed Billing) now displays data in a more organized fashion and also has a drilldown link to the CloudTrail Events report to see which user created the improperly tagged resource.

AWS Partner Saving Analysis Report enhancements
Added additional data points to the Partner Saving Analysis Report to provide a more accurate, more clear understanding of your savings. This report, which is found under Cost > AWS Partner Tools, is only visible when looking at an account in CloudCheckr that is linked to an AWS payer account.

New Extension for AppDynamics (Preview Mode)
Under Settings > Extension for AppDynamics you can configure CloudCheckr to push metrics into your AppDynamics dashboard.
NOTE: For this extension to work properly, you must activate the HTTP listener on your AppDynamics Standalone Machine Agent.

February 13, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, February 13, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

New AWS Credits Summary report
This new report, found under Cost > AWS Billing, allows you to track your AWS billing credits for any month/account/service combination.

Redshift RI reporting
CloudCheckr now offers 5 Redshift reserved instance reports, including summary, details, and purchase recommendations. These can be found under the Cost > Reserved Usage menu.

Activation links are available in Users page
When creating new users you now have the ability to copy their activation link directly from the Users page. This link will be available until the user’s login is activated.

Blended and List Cost added to Bill Summary reports
When viewing any of the Bill Summary reports found under the Cost > AWS Billing menu, you now have a dropdown to choose between Unblended, Blended, or List Pricing.
NOTE: Blended and List Pricing will only available beginning with the current month. If you would like to see this data historically, please contact Support by submitting a ticket via the CloudCheckr Service Desk Portal.

Performance improvements to Spend Analysis reports
The Cost Summary and Details reports within the Cost > Spend Analysis menu have all been optimized to return costs much faster.

Updated Invoice Generator UI
The Invoice Generator has been given a facelift, making it easier to add customer data and generate invoices.

PDF export added to Perimeter Assessment report
The Perimeter Assessment report now offers a PDF export. This report can be found within the Security menu.

Ability to add notes when ignoring best practice checks
When ignoring best practice checks, you will now be given the option to add a note detailing why the check is being ignored. You will be able to view these notes when filtered to the ignored checks in the report.

6 new Admin-Level API calls
The following API calls have been added:

  • account/remove_user
  • account/grant_account
  • account/revoke_account
  • account/get_users
  • account/get_accounts
  • help/get_all_api_endpoints

NOTE: Admin-Level API Access Key must be used to make these calls.
IMPORTANT: We have made a change to our API documentation, creating a standalone Admin-Level API Reference Guide. All account management API calls will be documented in this guide.
Please see here for more information: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/cloudcheckr-admin-level-api-reference/

January 15, 2015

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, January 15, 2015. 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 scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Support for using roles for CloudCheckr read-only authentication
Instead of providing your IAM Access and Secret Key to connect your AWS account to CloudCheckr, you can now use cross-account access.
You can find step-by-step instructions on this new configuration setup here: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/creating-roles-for-cross-account-access/

New marketplace charges reports
Within the Cost > Spend Analysis menu you will now find a Marketplace Summary and Marketplace Details report. These reports will allow you to gain insight into your Marketplace costs within AWS.

New resource tags tracking reports
There are two new reports to help you monitor and manage your cost tags within AWS.

  • Resource Tags Lookup – allows you to see all tags associated with any resource.
  • Tagging Rule Builder – this report allows you to create specific tagging rules, and will flag resources that do not meet the tagging requirements. For example, you can create a rule that all EC2 instances must have an Environment tag and a Customer tag. Any EC2 instance that does not have either of those tags will be flagged.

NOTE: These reports are currently in BETA. They can be found under Cost > AWS Billing > Tags in Detailed Billing

New RI amortization report
This report, found under Cost > Reserved Usage > EC2, shows you how much you’ve spent on RI Upfront Fees each month, and what the amortized cost of those fees are, spread over the lifetime of each purchase.

Support for new RI types in the EC2 RI Purchase Recommendations (by Frequency)
Within the Cost > Reserved Usage > EC2 menu, you’ll see the new EC2 RI Purchase Recommendations (by Frequency) Current Gen report. This report is designed to provide EC2 RI Purchase Recommendations, using the new Partial, No Upfront, and All Upfront payment options, for environments that utilize auto scaling.

Added Alerts for Publicly-Accessible Resources
Within the Alert Builder you can now create an alert to be triggered whenever a publicly accessible resource has been launched.

Showing custom logo in the UI now
Your uploaded custom logos will now display in the top-left corner of the app (previously they only displayed in PDF exports from reports). This logo can be managed by Admin users within the Settings like at the top of the app.

Best Practice Check – SPF set for Amazon SES domain

NOTE: This update includes improvements to CloudCheckr’s Elastic MapReduce reporting. These changes may require an update to your IAM policy to include the following permissions:

   "elasticmapreduce:DescribeJobFlows",
             "elasticmapreduce:DescribeStep",
             "elasticmapreduce:DescribeCluster",
             "elasticmapreduce:ListSteps",
             "elasticmapreduce:ListInstanceGroups",
             "elasticmapreduce:ListBootstrapActions",
             "elasticmapreduce:ListClusters",

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