Introduction

AWS Budgets is a cost management tool provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows you to set spending limits and track your AWS costs effectively. It helps you control your AWS expenses, stay within your budget, and avoid unexpected overages. In this guide, we'll explore how to manage costs with AWS Budgets.


Key Concepts

Before we dive into cost management with AWS Budgets, let's review some key concepts:

  • Budget: A budget is a predefined spending limit for your AWS costs. You can set budgets based on accounts, services, or cost categories.
  • Actual Cost: This is the total amount of money you've spent on AWS services during a specific period.
  • Forecasted Cost: AWS Budgets provides you with a forecast of your future costs based on your current spending trends.

Benefits of AWS Budgets

AWS Budgets offers several benefits for cost management:

  • Cost Control: You can set budgets and track your spending to ensure you stay within your financial limits.
  • Forecasting: AWS Budgets provides forecasts to help you plan your spending and avoid surprises.
  • Alerts: You can set up email or SMS alerts to be notified when you approach or exceed your budget thresholds.
  • Customization: AWS Budgets allows you to create budgets that are specific to your needs, such as cost categories, service budgets, or account-based budgets.

Creating an AWS Budget

To create an AWS budget, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to the AWS Management Console.
  2. Navigate to the AWS Budgets service.
  3. Create a new budget, specifying the budget type, budget name, and the cost and usage data you want to track.
  4. Set your budgeted amount and configure alert thresholds.
  5. Choose the notification preferences, such as email or SMS alerts, and set up the budget.

Sample Budget Creation (AWS CLI)

Here's an example of how to create a budget using the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI):

aws budgets create-budget --account-id 123456789012 --budget name=MyMonthlyBudget,budgetType=COST,limit=100.0 --notification-with-subscribers Threshold=80,ThresholdType=PERCENTAGE,NotificationState=ALARM --time-unit MONTHLY

Conclusion

AWS Budgets is a vital tool for managing and controlling your AWS costs effectively. Understanding its key concepts and how to set up budgets is essential for staying within your financial limits and avoiding unexpected costs.