Get more value from your billing and cost management data with customized exports and pre-built Amazon QuickSight dashboards
General AWS Data Exports FAQs
Q: How can I get started using AWS Data Exports?
You can get started using AWS Data Exports by navigating to the AWS Data Exports page in the Billing and Cost Management console or by accessing the AWS Data Exports API in the AWS CLI/SDKs. From here you can create an export by visually selecting the table and columns to export or by writing a query using basic SQL (column selection and row-filtering) and then specifying all delivery preferences.
Q: How does AWS Data Exports work?
AWS Data Exports allows you to write queries using basic SQL on tables that AWS provides of your billing and cost management data. Exports are delivered on a recurring basis.
Q: Why should I use AWS Data Exports?
AWS Data Exports allows you to customize your billing and cost management data using basic SQL so you can select only the data you want to process. You can create different views that include only the data that your stakeholders are allowed to see, or remove the data that you don’t need to reduce the size of the export. Also, with a SQL interface, AWS Data Exports ensures that you always receive your data with the schema and contents you specify.
Q: What data table is available in AWS Data Exports?
AWS Data Exports allows you to create exports of the AWS Cost and Usage Report 2.0 (CUR 2.0) table. The CUR 2.0 table provides the same information as the Cost and Usage Report (CUR) with a few improvements.
Q: How is AWS Cost and Usage Report 2.0 (CUR 2.0) different from AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR)?
CUR 2.0 provides the following improvements over CUR: 1/ Consistent schema – The CUR 2.0 table always contains a fixed set of columns whereas CUR dynamically includes columns in your report based on your usage in a given month. 2/ Nested data – CUR 2.0 reduces data sparsity by collapsing certain columns from CUR into individual columns with key-value pairs of the collapsed columns. The nested keys can optionally be queried in AWS Data Exports as separate columns to match the original CUR schema and data. 3/ Additional columns – CUR 2.0 contains two additional columns ‘bill_payer_account_name’ and ‘line_item_usage_account_name’.
Cost and Usage Dashboard
Q: What is Cost and Usage Dashboard?
The Cost and Usage Dashboard enables a seamless integration of your cost and usage data with Amazon QuickSight, and provides you with a pre-built interactive dashboard powered by Amazon QuickSight.
Q: How can I create a Cost and Usage Dashboard?
You can create a Cost and Usage Dashboard by selecting the Cost and Usage Dashboard tile on the AWS Data Exports home page in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console, connecting your Amazon QuickSight account, and configuring an Amazon S3 bucket.
Q: How does Cost and Usage Dashboard work?
Cost and Usage Dashboard prepares the data for analysis by creating a summary view of your cost and usage data by filtering out data, renaming fields, and adding calculated fields. It then stores the prepared data in Amazon QuickSight’s in-memory engine SPICE (Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine), and selects the best type of visualizations for the selected fields. Your Cost and Usage Dashboard is updated once in every 24 hours.
Q: Why should I use Cost and Usage Dashboard?
You should use Cost and Usage Dashboard if you want to securely share a summary view of your Cost and Usage Report 2.0 table, and insights with everyone in your organization, including the ones who may not have access to the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.
Q: How is Cost and Usage Dashboard different from Cloud Intelligence Dashboards (CID) solution?
Cost and Usage Dashboard is an easy to deploy, secure and pre-built dashboard powered by Amazon QuickSight and inspired from the open source project Cloud Intelligence Dashboards (CID). Cost and Usage Dashboard includes a subset of the summary visuals without the resource level views from the CUDOS dashboard which is one of the 6 Cloud Intelligence Dashboards. Cost and Usage Dashboard brings the benefits of CUDOS solution into an AWS Billing and Cost Management console feature that is easy to setup, and frees you from maintaining the underlying infrastructure like Amazon Athena views or AWS Glue crawlers. You can deploy Cost and Usage Dashboard from the Data Exports page in Billing and Cost Management console within minutes. CID involves AWS CloudFormation template based deployment. You can setup the complete CID solution by visiting AWS well architected labs.
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