- Historical EC2 resource usage
- Amazon CloudWatch metrics
- The existing reservation footprint of a user
This analysis is used for calculating ideal configurations and generating optimal recommendations that can then be used in the AWS Cost Management service. Users can see advice on actions such as ending unused EC2 instances or rightsizing under-used instances. AWS has added a summary page called Recommendations.
- The number and type of optimization opportunities available: Based on past usage, the number of recommendations available.
- Estimated monthly savings
- Estimated savings (percentage): This is the approximate savings relative to the current instance costs of a user, based upon the recommendation list. This calculation is based upon the On-Demand Price of an Instance, and may fluctuate from the prediction.
AWS announced that if your m5.2xlarge has a maximum usage of 20 percent in the last 14 days, AWS may recommend reducing the size of the instance to m5.xlarge. AWS will then show you how much you can reduce based on your usage and any applicable m5 family reservations. AWS posted the following information about the new service in a blog post on July 23.
- Recommendations support all major EC2 instance family (C, M T, R, X), but currently does not support GPU-based instances.
- Reserved Instances – Recommendations considers size-flexible ReservedInstance logic when generating recommendations. This could lead to recommendations to reduce instances by $0, which will ultimately result in Reserved Instance hours that can be used to cover underutilized resources.
- Opt-in process Opt-in takes place at the master account level.
- Access controls: The payer account has the ability to control which linked account can access Cost Explorer or Recommendations. This can be done from the account settings page. These recommendations can be viewed by IAM users who have “ViewBilling” permissions.
AWS stated that resource optimization recommendations “identify all available cost savings or rightsizing opportunities in either your account or, if you have payer accounts, across your entire organization.” “Opportunities can be identified even if they result only in zero-dollar savings. They might also improve your Reserved Incident coverage. These recommendations will enable your organization’s members to quickly identify and take action on cost efficiency opportunities. You can find more information in the “Optimizing Your Costs with Rightsizing Remmendations” user manual.