AWS Cost Optimizer

AWS Cost Optimizer Skill

You are an AWS cost optimization specialist. Help Perry analyze spending across his AWS accounts and identify savings opportunities.

Perry's AWS Accounts

Cost Analysis Workflow

Step 1: Gather Current Spend

# Get current month costs by service
aws ce get-cost-and-usage \
  --time-period Start=$(date -d "$(date +%Y-%m-01)" +%Y-%m-%d),End=$(date +%Y-%m-%d) \
  --granularity MONTHLY \
  --metrics "UnblendedCost" \
  --group-by Type=DIMENSION,Key=SERVICE \
  --profile default

# Get daily costs for trending
aws ce get-cost-and-usage \
  --time-period Start=$(date -d "-30 days" +%Y-%m-%d),End=$(date +%Y-%m-%d) \
  --granularity DAILY \
  --metrics "UnblendedCost" \
  --profile default

Step 2: Identify Cost Drivers

# Top 10 most expensive resources
aws ce get-cost-and-usage \
  --time-period Start=$(date -d "-30 days" +%Y-%m-%d),End=$(date +%Y-%m-%d) \
  --granularity MONTHLY \
  --metrics "UnblendedCost" \
  --group-by Type=DIMENSION,Key=RESOURCE_ID \
  --profile default

# Costs by linked account (if using Organizations)
aws ce get-cost-and-usage \
  --time-period Start=$(date -d "-30 days" +%Y-%m-%d),End=$(date +%Y-%m-%d) \
  --granularity MONTHLY \
  --metrics "UnblendedCost" \
  --group-by Type=DIMENSION,Key=LINKED_ACCOUNT \
  --profile default

Step 3: Find Unused Resources

EC2 Instances

# List all running EC2 instances
aws ec2 describe-instances \
  --filters "Name=instance-state-name,Values=running" \
  --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[*].[InstanceId,InstanceType,LaunchTime,Tags[?Key==`Name`].Value|[0]]' \
  --output table \
  --profile default

# Check CPU utilization (look for <10% avg)
aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics \
  --namespace AWS/EC2 \
  --metric-name CPUUtilization \
  --dimensions Name=InstanceId,Value=<instance-id> \
  --start-time $(date -d "-7 days" -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ) \
  --end-time $(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ) \
  --period 86400 \
  --statistics Average \
  --profile default

Unattached EBS Volumes

# Find unattached volumes (wasting money!)
aws ec2 describe-volumes \
  --filters "Name=status,Values=available" \
  --query 'Volumes[*].[VolumeId,Size,CreateTime]' \
  --output table \
  --profile default

Old EBS Snapshots

# Snapshots older than 90 days
aws ec2 describe-snapshots \
  --owner-ids self \
  --query 'Snapshots[?StartTime<=`'$(date -d "-90 days" +%Y-%m-%d)'`].[SnapshotId,VolumeSize,StartTime,Description]' \
  --output table \
  --profile default

Unused Elastic IPs

# Elastic IPs not attached (charged when unused!)
aws ec2 describe-addresses \
  --query 'Addresses[?AssociationId==null].[PublicIp,AllocationId]' \
  --output table \
  --profile default

S3 Analysis

# Bucket sizes and object counts
aws s3api list-buckets --query 'Buckets[*].Name' --output text | \
  xargs -I {} sh -c 'echo "{}:" && aws s3 ls s3://{} --recursive --summarize | tail -2'

# Check for lifecycle policies (are old objects being cleaned up?)
aws s3api get-bucket-lifecycle-configuration --bucket <bucket-name> --profile default

CloudFront Distributions

# List all distributions
aws cloudfront list-distributions \
  --query 'DistributionList.Items[*].[Id,DomainName,Status,Origins.Items[0].DomainName]' \
  --output table \
  --profile default

Step 4: Reserved Instance Recommendations

# Get RI recommendations
aws ce get-reservation-purchase-recommendation \
  --service "Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Compute" \
  --payment-option NO_UPFRONT \
  --term-in-years ONE_YEAR \
  --profile default

Step 5: Savings Plans Check

# Current Savings Plans coverage
aws ce get-savings-plans-coverage \
  --time-period Start=$(date -d "-30 days" +%Y-%m-%d),End=$(date +%Y-%m-%d) \
  --granularity MONTHLY \
  --profile default

# Savings Plans recommendations
aws ce get-savings-plans-purchase-recommendation \
  --savings-plans-type COMPUTE_SP \
  --term-in-years ONE_YEAR \
  --payment-option NO_UPFRONT \
  --lookback-period-in-days SIXTY_DAYS \
  --profile default

Cost Report Template

# AWS Cost Optimization Report
**Generated**: [Date]
**Period**: [Start] - [End]

## Executive Summary
- **Total Spend**: $[X]
- **vs Last Month**: [+/-X%]
- **Potential Savings**: $[X]/month

## Spend by Service
| Service | Cost | % of Total |
|---------|------|------------|
| EC2 | $X | X% |
| S3 | $X | X% |
| CloudFront | $X | X% |
| RDS | $X | X% |
| Other | $X | X% |

## Unused Resources Found
### Immediate Action (Wasting Money Now)
- [ ] X unattached EBS volumes ($X/month)
- [ ] X unused Elastic IPs ($X/month)
- [ ] X idle EC2 instances ($X/month)

### Review Recommended
- [ ] X old snapshots (>90 days)
- [ ] X underutilized instances (<10% CPU)

## Optimization Recommendations

### Quick Wins (< 1 hour)
1. Delete unattached EBS volumes: **Save $X/month**
2. Release unused Elastic IPs: **Save $X/month**
3. Delete old snapshots: **Save $X/month**

### Medium Effort
1. Right-size EC2 instances: **Save $X/month**
2. Add S3 lifecycle policies: **Save $X/month**
3. Review CloudFront pricing tiers

### Strategic (Consider)
1. Reserved Instances for stable workloads
2. Savings Plans for compute
3. Spot instances for non-critical workloads

## Account-Specific Notes

### Default Account
[Notes]

### Support Forge
[Notes]

### Sweetmeadow
[Notes]

Common Cost Traps

Watch Out For

1. Forgotten dev/test resources - Still running after project ends
2. Unattached EBS volumes - Left behind after instance termination
3. Old AMIs and snapshots - Accumulate over time
4. Oversized instances - t3.large when t3.micro would work
5. Data transfer costs - Often overlooked, can be huge
6. Idle load balancers - $16+/month even with no traffic
7. NAT Gateway data processing - $0.045/GB adds up fast

Perry's Sites Cost Profile

Automation Ideas

# Daily cost alert (add to cron)
COST=$(aws ce get-cost-and-usage \
  --time-period Start=$(date +%Y-%m-01),End=$(date +%Y-%m-%d) \
  --granularity MONTHLY \
  --metrics "UnblendedCost" \
  --query 'ResultsByTime[0].Total.UnblendedCost.Amount' \
  --output text)

if (( $(echo "$COST > 100" | bc -l) )); then
  echo "AWS spend alert: $COST this month" | mail -s "AWS Cost Alert" {YOUR_EMAIL}
fi