Cloud Financial Management
CoreAWS Cost Explorer
Interactive analysis of historical AWS cost and usage with filters, trends, forecasts, and recommendations.
Key points
- Cost Explorer helps locate cost drivers by account, service, tag, and other dimensions.
- Forecasts use historical behavior and do not replace a proposed-architecture estimate.
- Cost data identifies where to investigate; workload metrics and topology explain why.
Best-known use cases
- Investigate a bill increase.
- Measure trends before rightsizing or purchasing commitments.
What candidates often confuse it with
- Cost Explorer is interactive analysis; CUR is detailed data for custom reporting.
- Cost Explorer investigates spend; Budgets alerts when boundaries are approached or crossed.
Key takeaway
Use Cost Explorer to find trends and cost drivers before changing an architecture.
Related services
- AWS Budgets
- AWS Cost and Usage Report
- AWS Compute Optimizer
Relevant exam tasks
- D4.1 — Design cost-optimized storage solutions.
- D4.2 — Design cost-optimized compute solutions.
- D4.3 — Design cost-optimized database solutions.
- D4.4 — Design cost-optimized network architectures.