Tracking CloudEndure Disaster Recovery resources with AWS Cost Explorer and cost allocation tags

CloudEndure Disaster Recovery is a block level replication tool that uses Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, and EBS Snapshot resources to create a safe and secure disaster recovery solution for customers. The CloudEndure Disaster Recovery console is purpose built to focus on disaster recovery, but does not provide visibility into underlying infrastructure costs. This means that customers using CloudEndure Disaster Recovery do not always have visibility into operational resource costs, making it more challenging to predict and plan for them.

AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that helps you view and analyze your cost and usage across all AWS services. Cost Explorer and cost allocation tags provide a way to view and analyze the costs of CloudEndure Disaster Recovery and the underlying resources that are provisioned.

In this blog, we demonstrate how user tags can assist with CloudEndure Disaster Recovery cost tracking. We also show how to export data for further analysis, making this solution ideal for helping you manage your operational resources involved with your disaster recovery (DR) infrastructure.

Overview of solution

The following diagram shows a default CloudEndure Disaster Recovery configuration. This includes EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and (not shown) EBS snapshots. These resources are automatically tagged by CloudEndure Disaster Recovery upon creation. This post shows how to define cost allocation tags that search and report on these tagged resources.

Walkthrough

Here is a brief overview of the process:

• Set up cost allocation tags for CloudEndure Disaster Recovery
• Create a Cost Explorer report based on CloudEndure Disaster Recovery tagged resources
• Export the report to CSV

Prerequisites

For this walkthrough, you should have the following prerequisites:

• An AWS account
• AWS resources
• A CloudEndure Disaster Recovery account replicating source machines
• Appropriate access to add cost allocation tags and use Cost Explorer

Enable cost allocation tags

1. Log in to the AWS Management Console.
2. Search for Billing and open the Billing & Cost Management Dashboard.
3. Click on Cost allocation tags.
4. Under User-defined cost allocation tags, select the box beside Name.
5. Click the Activate The Status column changes to Active.
   • After you select and activate your tags, it can take up to 24 hours for tags to complete activation.

Create Cost Explorer report

1. Log in to the AWS Management Console, search for AWS Cost Explorer, and open the AWS Cost Management dashboard.
2. Click on Cost Explorer.
3. Under FILTERS, click on Tag then search for and select the tag called “Name.”
4. In the Search for Name field, type in the word CloudEndure.
5. Choose the box beside Select All to select all CloudEndure tagged resources and click Apply filters.
6. Click the Save as… button near the top left corner and assign the new report a name. For example, CloudEndure Costs. Then click Save Report >.
7. The report is now saved.

View and export saved Cost Explorer report

1. Log in to the AWS Management Console.
2. Search for AWS Cost Explorer and open the AWS Cost Management dashboard.
   
3. Click on Reports.
4. Select the report that was previously saved.
5. The report can be further customized by using the Group by options near the top or any of the other filters available in AWS Cost Explorer.
6. Once ready, data may be exported for further analysis by clicking the Download CSV Click on the button and download the CSV file to a location on your computer.

Conclusion

The CloudEndure Disaster Recovery console is purpose built to focus on disaster recovery, but does not provide visibility into underlying infrastructure costs. This can make it challenging to predict and plan for overall expenses. AWS Cost Explorer is a tool that enables you to view and analyze your cost and usage across all AWS services.

In this blog, we walked through activating cost allocation tags, creating and saving a custom report, and exporting the report data. The solution demonstrated can provide you with insights into the overall costs of the EC2, EBS, and EBS snapshot resources provisioned by CloudEndure Disaster Recovery. These steps may be used in your own environment to understand the overall costs of using CloudEndure Disaster Recovery. If you have any comments or questions, you can share them in the comments section.