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Cost Allocation

With the wide application of cloud computing, more and more enterprises are choosing to migrate their business to cloud platforms. Cloud computing provides elastic and scalable computing resources, but it also introduces complexity in cost management. In the cloud environment, the use of resources and the generation of expenses are dynamic. Different businesses, teams, and projects may share cloud resources, making it difficult to directly correlate specific costs to specific units.

To address this issue, the SavingsNow platform offers refined cloud cost-sharing capabilities. This allows users to split the enterprise's or project's costs according to the billing details provided by cloud vendors or partners, and allocate the cloud costs to each cost unit reasonably. This provides more accurate cost information and decision support. The specific value is mainly reflected in the following four aspects:

  • Increased transparency : Through cost sharing, enterprises can clearly understand the cloud costs of each cost unit, including cloud vendors, resources, organizations, businesses, teams, and projects. This transparency helps companies make more informed budget and resource allocation decisions.
  • Accountability : Cost sharing helps companies identify the consumption of cloud resources by departments, teams, or projects, thereby enhancing cost awareness and promoting the proper use of resources.
  • Optimizing decisions : With accurate cost data, organizations can identify the most cost-effective business units and resource usage, and then optimize resource allocation and business strategy.
  • Cost control : An effective cost allocation mechanism helps enterprises detect cost anomalies and waste in a timely manner, allowing them to adjust and control costs promptly.

Cost Overview​

By default, it displays the cost data of the last accounting period in a card and list format. It allows users to select the allocation object and any historical accounting period for further cost viewing. Costs can be calculated at the discounted price or the original price, and the platform supports two currency units: US Dollar (USD) and Chinese Yuan (CNY).

Listing​

By default, the monthly cost summary of all cloud accounts for the last accounting period is displayed, along with the actual cost of each apportioned object in the form of a list.

Components​

  • Total cost: Displays the total cloud cost for the current accounting period. Clicking the value shows the cost details by resource type in a list format on the right.

  • Allocated cost: Displays the apportioned cost after applying the allocation rule for the current accounting period. Clicking the value shows the details of the allocated cost by resource type in a list format on the right side, illustrating which resource type and how much cost is allocated according to which rule and in what proportion.

  • Unallocated costs: Displays the unallocated cost after applying the allocation rules for the current accounting period. Corresponding to "Allocated Cost," clicking the value shows the details of the unallocated cost by resource type in a list format on the right side, illustrating which resource types and how much cost can still be allocated.

  • Allocation objects: Displays the number of allocation objects involved in the current accounting period. Clicking the value shows a list on the right side, detailing the allocation objects, object types, currency, and actual costs.

Allocation rules​

In SavingsNow, allocation rules provide methods to allocate the cost of cloud computing resources to different cost units. Key features include:

  • Cloud Vendor Specific: Each allocation rule is scoped to a specific cloud vendor.
  • Structure: Apportionment rules are structurally divided into "source," "target," and "rule" parts.
    • Source: The allocatable cost object.
    • Target: The cost unit to which the cost will be allocated.
    • Rule: The logic used to apportion a portion of the cost from the "source" to the "target."
  • Execution: Allocation rules are not executed immediately upon creation but are triggered when associated with an accounting period.

On the allocation rules page, a list of user-defined allocation rules is displayed, along with operations such as new, clone, edit, execute, delete.

Create a rule​

Click [+ Create New Rule] to open the rule details page and fill in the required rule fields.

  • Rule name: Required; the name must be unique and can be up to 50 characters.

  • Rule description: Used to explain the apportionment logic of the current rule; can be up to 200 characters.

  • Cloud vendor: Default display is "Please select a cloud vendor." Currently supports AWS, GCP, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Huawei Cloud.

  • Resource filtering: Default is empty. After specifying the "Cloud Vendor," a condition combination editor will be displayed to specify the source apportion object, i.e., filter the cloud costs to be apportioned through conditions. In the condition combination editor, you can create cost filtering rules of varying complexity by using "Add Condition" and "Add Condition Group."

Note: A "condition" consists of a key-value pair, and a "condition group" must contain at least one condition but can also consist of multiple conditions combined with "OR" or "AND." Condition groups can be nested, meaning a single condition can be a condition group, and multiple conditions naturally form a condition group.

  • Add a condition: The user can choose any cloud account, cloud product, resource instance, or tag as the "key" of the condition. After "equal to," the corresponding value can be entered based on the "key," and one or more values can be selected simultaneously. For example, if you want to filter and apportion the cloud cost of the cloud product Amazon ElastiCache under AWS-Global, the key of the condition is "Cloud product" and the value of the condition is "Amazon ElastiCache", as shown in the figure below.

  • Add a condition group: In a condition, you can add a condition containing "or/AND" as a combination rule and a set of key-value pairs at once by clicking "Add Condition Group", so that you can configure multiple levels of nested complex filtering logic. For example, if you want to filter out the cloud cost spent by the ops department and the owner is ceshi@xx.com, you need to create a condition group, where the key of the first condition is "tag", and further specify the key of the tag as "dept" due to the uniqueness of the tag (i.e., it is itself a key/value pair). The corresponding value is "ops"; Similarly, configure another tag with the key "Owner" and the corresponding value "**ceshi@xx.com"; The relation between the two conditions is "and", see the figure below.

  • Delete conditions: If a condition is found to be misconfigured, it can be cleaned up by clicking the "Delete" button on the right side of the condition.

  • Allocation object: Used to specify the target object to receive the apportionment and how it should be apportioned.

    • Configure the allocation object: The options are sourced from Settings - User and Organization Management - Organization Structure and Project. Filtering is based on the organization or project the user belongs to, ensuring that users can only apportion specific costs to the departments or projects within their responsibility. This prevents arbitrary or malicious apportionment.

  • Configure the allocation ratio to two decimal places. The allocation ratios for all allocation objects must sum to 100%; otherwise, an exception warning will be issued.

  • Delete allocation objects: Users can delete any configured allocation object as needed.

  • To add an allocation object, click [Add] to add another allocation object, and you can add up to 10 allocation objects in one allocation rule.

Click [Save] to finish saving after the rule check passes; Click [Cancel] to return directly to the rule list page of the previous level.

In addition, in the New Allocation rule page, an "Add New rule" entry is provided. This allows you to quickly create and submit a new allocation rule along with the previously created one, thereby improving the efficiency of rule creation.

Inspect rule execution​

Click [View Rule Execution] to open the list of rule applications.

In the list, a series of apportionment rules associated with the current account period are listed, showing detailed execution information for each rule, including:

  • Rule name: Displays the name of the apportionment rule.
  • Execution status: Includes statuses such as completed, execution in progress, execution exception, termination in progress, and terminated.
  • Exception description: When the rule status is "execution exception," this column provides a detailed explanation of the cause of the exception.
  • Execute rules: Click [Execute Rules], click [Confirm] in the pop-up box to execute the current rule.
  • Remove rule: Click [Remove Rule] and click [Confirm] in the pop-up box to remove the current rule.

Review rules​

In the allocation rule list, select the allocation rule name you want to view. This will display the details of the current allocation rule in a read-only state.

Clone rules​

In the allocation rule list, click the [Clone] button in the operation column of a certain allocation rule, which can quickly create a copy of the allocation rule and open the editing page. Users can then re-edit the content of the copied rule as needed, improving the efficiency of creating allocation rules.

Edit rules​

In the allocation rule list, click the [Edit] button in the operation column of a specific allocation rule to enter the detail page for editing. The editing process is consistent with the rule creation process, so it does not need to be repeated here.

Execute rules​

Two methods are provided to enforce the allocation rule:

  • In the allocation rule list, click the [Execute] button in the operation column of a specific allocation rule. Select the execution period and click [Confirm] to complete the execution operation.

  • In the allocation rule list, Multiple allocation rules in the list can be executed simultaneously by selecting multiple apportionment rules or by select multiple rules and then "Batch Execute".

Remove rules​

Two methods are provided to remove the allocation rule:

  • In the allocation rule list, click the [Delete] button in the operation column of a specific allocation rule.

  • In the allocation rule list, Multiple allocation rules in the list can be deleted simultaneously by selecting multiple apportionment rules or by select multiple rules and then "Delete".

Note: Any deletion requires a second confirmation before it is actually performed.

Allocation details​

By default, it displays the allocation details for all allocation objects from the previous accounting period.

  • A detailed list shows the selected billing period, apportionment object, cloud vendor, resource type, account number, resource name/ID, billing model, region, association rule, cost tag, actual cost, apportionment ratio, currency, and apportionment cost data.
  • By selecting currency, accounting period, apportionment object, cloud vendor, cloud account, and cloud product, the detailed apportionment data for the apportionment object can be displayed.