Question

Difficulty: MediumAWS Billing and Cost Management Tools

A financial analytics firm wants to monitor their monthly spending on Amazon EC2 instances. The team needs to configure a system that automatically sends an email notification to the finance department if the forecasted cost is projected to exceed a predefined threshold. Which AWS service or tool should the company use to meet this requirement?

  1. AWS BudgetsAnswer
  2. B
    AWS Cost Explorer
  3. C
    AWS Pricing Calculator
  4. D
    AWS Billing Conductor

Answer

AWS Budgets
AWS Budgets is the correct tool because it allows users to set custom spending limits and configure automated email or SNS notifications when actual or forecasted costs exceed user-defined thresholds.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the operational requirement.
The firm needs a tool that actively monitors ongoing or forecasted costs and automatically sends email alerts when a custom budget threshold is projected to be crossed.
This is a proactive alert requirement rather than historical analysis or post-facto billing adjustment.
2
Evaluate the capabilities of the cost management tools.
AWS Budgets supports setting thresholds on actual or forecasted costs and triggering SNS notifications or emails. AWS Cost Explorer is for reactive historical analysis. AWS Pricing Calculator is for pre-deployment estimation. AWS Billing Conductor is for custom billing rules and pro forma invoicing.
Matching the capability of AWS Budgets to the proactive monitoring and notification requirement.

Key Concept

Using AWS Budgets for proactive threshold alerting on actual or forecasted costs.
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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