Amazon Web Services Basic Cloud Concepts: Cloud Economics

Name: Amazon Web Services Basic Cloud Concepts: Cloud Economics
Author: Demetria Crawford

Learn the economics of AWS cloud computing

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Course: On-Demand

Hello, my name is Demetria Crawford. In this lesson, we will review TCO, total cost of ownership. AWS offers free tools to estimate the cost of running AWS cloud services. If you know the details of what you need, such as services, amount of resources required, and length of time of the need, we can use the TCO tools to generate estimates prior to turning the services on. We can identify the monthly and yearly cost, and generate reports from those. However, keep in mind that we tend to make adjustments throughout the year, based on business needs. Let's take a look at the AWS Pricing Calculator. To access the calculator, go to calculator.aws. Now how this works is that we will add services, configure those services, and then that will generate estimated totals for us. Let's get started. Click on Create estimate. Next we have to select a service, let's type in EC2. We're going to select the first option, Amazon EC2, you have two choices, you can go to the Product page to get more information about EC2, or you can click on Configure, click on Configure. So our first option here is to create our own Description of this estimate, we're gonna leave that blank, next you will select your Region. Yours may say Us East Ohio, click the down arrow and change this to US East N. Virginia. Each region has its own set of services, so it may not offer all of the services, and each region has a different price model. So based on the selection you choose, the pricing will change, so change to US East N. Virginia. And we're gonna do a Quick estimate. You have a choice between Advanced or Quick, and we're gonna choose Quick, which is what it's on by default. Next, we have to select the EC2 instance specifications. We can choose which Operating system we're gonna use. If you click on the dropdown arrow, you'll notice that you'll have Windows, Red Hat, and a few other options there. By default, it's set to Linux and we're gonna stick to the default on this one. Next is your Instance type. You're going to enter the number of CPUs you would like to have, the amount of memory you would like to have, and we also have the option to add additional lines here. So click on Add requirement. You'll notice we now have three lines, and with the dropdown we can add GPUs or ECUs. We're going to remove this as we're not going to use those for now. So for the number of CPUs, we're gonna leave that as 4, and memory let's change that from 16 to 64. Okay, now, below that we can see what the instance type that is recommended, the on demand hourly cost, and we can also see the number of resources that we've selected. So from here, let's say, I say that the on-demand hourly cost is too high, let's suggest this by changing the memory to 32 gigs. So if I change from 64 to 32, you'll notice that the On-Demand hourly costs changed in the blue area, and the instance type changed. Let's change it from 32 to 16 and see what that gives us. You'll notice that the instance type is now a t4g.xlarge, and the price now is 0.1344 for On-Demand hourly cost. Next, we will need to identify the Quantity. How many instances of this type do we want? Let's change that from 1 to 10. And finally Utilization. This is how often you believe, or how much of time within the month or day, you do get to choose the time period that these instances are going to run. So let's say that we're going to use this 75% of the time, so, change from 100 to 75. Okay, next is the Pricing strategy. Pricing strategy is based on the type of model you wanna use. So On-Demand is for a medium period of time, so a few months. If you know that you're gonna need the instance for more than a year, then more than likely we're looking at a reserved instance because there are more discounts if you use a reserved instance type. Click on Standard Reserved Instances, and we're gonna change the Reservation term to 3 Years, and we'll leave the Payment options as No Upfront cost. Now, if we pay upfront, we get even more discounts with reserved instances, click on Show calculations. So now let's change from 3 Years to 1 Year, and see what the price change is. You'll notice it went up to $615.39, if you go back to 3 Years, it's $423.40. So you can play around with the Pricing strategy to identify the best cost for your organization. Now, finally, we have the Elastic Block Storage, this is storage that is attached to the instance. We're gonna leave this as is but you can always change to a different type of storage, and you can change the size, right now we're at 30 gigs. Okay, finally, you can see the Total monthly cost is $453.40. Now click on, Add to my estimate. This is the total for what we've done so far, you can add additional services by clicking on Add service, or you can Export or Share this. Let's create a PDF of this, so click on Export and click on PDF, click OK. You notice we have the option to now save or print this report, click Cancel. So now we've gone through the TCO by using the AWS Pricing Calculator. In the next lesson we will review billing, dashboards, and reports. Thanks for watching.

Beginner Provider : Demetria Crawford 5 Lessons · 23m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Urdu, Chinese

Course Description

AWS offers tools to estimate the cost of running AWS cloud services and forecasting for future costs. If you know the details of what you need, such as the services, number of resources required, and length of time needed, you can use the AWS Calculator to identify the monthly and yearly costs. Using the calculator also allows you to see what cost-saving options there are and how you can change your service to reduce cost. You will also see how your cost may fluctuate based on your anticipated usage. Through this tool, you can adjust your usage to meet business and budgetary needs. In these lessons on Cloud Economics, you will learn how to use the AWS Calculator to identify the total cost of ownership. You will access the AWS billing dashboard to create budgets and billing alarms. Also, you will use AWS Trusted Advisor to verify best practices are applied to your account.

What You'll Learn

Assess the total cost of ownership using the AWS Calculator to identify monthly and yearly costs
Create AWS budgets and billing alarms through the AWS billing dashboard
Navigate the billing dashboard and generate billing reports
Identify AWS account best practices using AWS Trusted Advisor
Describe the AWS support plans

Key Takeaways

The AWS Calculator lets you estimate monthly and yearly costs when you know the services, number of resources required, and length of time needed.
Using the AWS Calculator reveals cost-saving options and shows how changing a service can reduce cost.
Cost may fluctuate based on anticipated usage, and usage can be adjusted to meet business and budgetary needs.
The AWS billing dashboard is used to create budgets and billing alarms.
AWS Trusted Advisor is used to verify that best practices are applied to your account.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this Cloud Economics course?

You will learn how to use the AWS Calculator to identify the total cost of ownership, access the AWS billing dashboard to create budgets and billing alarms, and use AWS Trusted Advisor to verify best practices are applied to your account. The course also covers AWS support plans.

What does the AWS Calculator do?

If you know the details of what you need, such as the services, number of resources required, and length of time needed, the AWS Calculator identifies the monthly and yearly costs. It also shows cost-saving options, how you can change your service to reduce cost, and how your cost may fluctuate based on anticipated usage.

What topics are covered in the lessons?

The lessons cover Total Cost of Ownership, Billing Dashboard and Reports, Billing Alarms, AWS Trusted Advisor, and AWS Support Plans.

What skills does this course help build?

The course helps build skills in Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Web Services, AWS Cost Management, Cloud Computing, Cloud Services, and supports preparation as an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.

How can the AWS Calculator help manage a budget?

By showing cost-saving options and how costs fluctuate based on anticipated usage, the calculator allows you to adjust your usage to meet business and budgetary needs.