What's New

1

New edition of Cost Center:

• Easier navigation
• Comprehensive cost overview
• Scenario-specific cost analysis
• Simpler budget creation

1. The navigation menus have been reorganized to streamline the journey of cloud cost management: Cost Insights > Cost Organization > Budget Management > Cost Optimization. The new navigation provides clear direction on where to go to meet customer needs.
2. The overall layout has been optimized to give customers quick convenient view of their costs. Cost Assistant has been rolled out as an all-new feature. It offers maturity scores and insight recommendations to help customers manage costs better.
3. There are a variety of reports recommended for typical cost analysis scenarios. Customers can add certain reports to their favorites for faster cost analysis. On cost analysis pages, browsing views are distinguished from action views, giving customers a better experience.
4. There are a wide range of budget templates available for common scenarios to make budget creation simpler.

Commercial use

Overview

Viewing Cost Analyses

Budgets

2

Support for selecting enterprise projects by linked account

An enterprise master account can select enterprise projects by linked account, except the default enterprise project and those not categorized.

Commercial use

Viewing Cost Analyses

Creating a Budget

Overview of Cost Optimization

Managing Cost Categories

3

Support for cost forecasting in the grace period for yearly/monthly subscriptions

The grace period is considered when original costs of the yearly/monthly subscriptions are forecasted. Such cost forecasting is based on the following assumption: If auto-renewal is not enabled, resources will be renewed within the grace period.

Commercial use

Forecasting

1

Support for hourly cost analysis

In Cost Center, Hourly Cost Analysis is available on the Preferences page. Customers can enable or disable this function.

If customers enable this function, Cost Center will present their original costs by the hour from the last 14 days on the Cost Analysis page.

Commercial use

Viewing Cost Analyses

2

[Cost Optimization Recommendations] Support for resource rightsizing recommendations from OA

After customers enable Optimization Advisor (OA), they can obtain recommendations for rightsizing EIP, ELB, and EVS resources from OA.

Commercial use

Optimizing EVS, EIP, and ELB Resources

3

Cost categories applicable to historical billing cycles

When customers are creating or editing cost categories, they can configure a look-back period for up to last 12 months.

On the Cost Allocation > Cost Categories page in Cost Center, the following setting is available:

Commercial use

Managing Cost Categories

4

Support for searching resources by name or ID under the Resource Name/ID filter

Customers can search resources by name or ID under the Resource Name/ID filter for cost analysis.

Commercial use

Viewing Cost Analyses

5

Pop-up messages available for reminding customer to verify the email address or mobile number

On the Budgets, Cost Anomaly Detection, Cost Optimization, and Budget Reports pages of Cost Center, if the notification methods configured for alert notifications have not been verified, customers will encounter a pop-up message, reminding them to verify the notification methods. Customers can follow the instructions to verify the email address or mobile number.

Commercial use

Creating a Budget

Configuring Alert Notifications

Cost Optimization Overview

Budget Reports

6

Support for displaying the data export progress

In Cost Center, when customers choose Export History to export a file, they will see the progress bar. After the export is completed, they can click Download in the Operation column to download the file.

Commercial use

Export History

1

Support for exporting cost optimization recommendations

Customers can export all cost optimization recommendations on the Cost Optimization page and determine whether to apply the recommendations in dimensions they select.

Commercial use

Exporting Cost Optimization Recommendations

1

Different recipients configurable for alert notifications with different monitors

Customers now can create alert notifications and specify different recipients for different monitors in the following steps:

1. Log in to Cost Center, choose Cost Anomaly Detection > Alert Notifications, and click Create Notification in the upper right corner of the page.
2. Configure notification details and specify notification recipients.

Commercial use

Enabling Alerts

2

Generated costs taken into account for calculating the current-month forecasted cost

On the Overview and Cost Analysis pages, cost data is now collected by the day to improve the accuracy of cost forecasting. In addition, the current-month forecasted cost is now calculated by adding together the actual cost generated in the past days of the month and the forecasted cost in the coming days of the month.

Commercial use

Forecasting

3

UX optimization for Cost Anomaly Detection

1. On the Cost Anomaly Detection page in Cost Center, the Cost Anomaly Detection Summary area is now provided to show the number of anomalies pending feedback, the number of cost anomalies from the last 30 days, and the cost impact from the last 30 days.
2. In the Feedback area, the Reasons field has been added for customers to select specific anomaly reasons.

Commercial use

Viewing Anomaly History

4

Support for custom display of Top 5 Costs By MoM Growth ($) on the Cost Center overview page

On the Overview page in Cost Center, when customers click Select Dimensions in the Top 5 Costs by MoM Growth area, they can toggle on or off the switches to show or hide the dimensions, drag and drop them to change the order they are displayed in, and choose which cost tag or cost category is by default displayed to group costs.

Commercial use

Overview

5

Integration of cost optimization recommendations

When customers log in to Cost Center and choose Cost Optimization, all of the cost optimization recommendations and estimated savings are displayed. Currently, only billing mode change opportunities are available. Customers can locate a specific cost optimization opportunity and click View Details in the Operation column to view its details. They can optimize the costs for the applicable resources as needed.

Commercial use

Cost Optimization Overview

6

Uncategorized costs available for cost category rules involving enterprise projects

When customers log in to Cost Center to create or update a cost category, if they select Enterprise Project as a condition for creating a rule, Not categorized is included as an option.

Commercial use

Cost Category Management

7

List price used as the basis for calculating the cost recommendations of changing pay-per-use to yearly/monthly

In Cost Center, the cost optimization recommendations for changing pay-per-use to yearly/monthly are all calculated based on the list price, without taking commercial discounts into account. They may differ from actual payments and are provided solely for reference.

Commercial use

Yearly/Monthly Subscriptions

8

Changing the billing mode from pay-per-use to yearly/monthly

When customers log in to Cost Center and choose Cost Optimization > Yearly/Monthly Subscriptions, they can view the newly added filter Enterprise Project. With this filter, customers can search or filter the cost optimization options of changing pay-per-use to yearly/monthly by enterprise project.

Commercial use

Yearly/Monthly Subscriptions

9

Navigation menus adjusted

Cost Center navigation menus are adjusted to show cost optimization recommendations and cost allocation tools more distinctly.

Commercial use

Introduction

10

Cost Center overview upgraded for better user experience

The new Overview page gives a quick overview of the current month costs, cost optimization recommendations, cost anomalies identified, and budgets.

Commercial use

Overview

11

Enterprise projects without any expenditures available for cost category rules

When you define cost category rules, you can now select enterprise projects that have not incurred any expenditures.

Commercial use

Cost Category Management

12

Operations in Cost Center interconnected to CTS

1. With Cloud Trace Service (CTS), the key operations in Cost Center can be reported to CTS for further query, audit, and backtracking.
2. When you log in to the CTS console, you can filter Cost Center operations by Trace Source and Resource Type to view the operation records for the last seven days.

Commercial use

Supported Cost Center Operations

1

Abbreviations have been added for the cloud service names displayed in the Cloud Service column on the Cost Analysis page.

On the Cost Analysis page of Cost Center, abbreviations are now provided for the cloud service names displayed in the Cloud Service column when cost data is grouped by usage type, resource name/ID, or specifications.

Commercial use

Viewing Cost Analyses

2

The maximum number of filtering items have been changed.

On the Cost Analysis and Budgets page of Cost Center, customers can now select up to 20 items for a level-1 option and up to 50 items for a level-2 option at a time under the filter Cost Category or Cost Tag.

Commercial use

Quotas and Restrictions

3

Shortening URL for Sharing Cost Analysis Report

The URL length for Share Link on the Cost Analysis page is shortened, with only necessary parameter information included.

Commercial use

Viewing Cost Analyses

4

Shared CDN costs can be split by cost tag for a specific domain name.

When customers enable cost splitting in Cost Center, they can split CDN costs by domain name if the CDN resources are billed by traffic, 95 peak bandwidth, or daily average peak bandwidth. As of May, 2023, in addition to enterprise project for a specific domain name, the costs can also be split by cost tag for the domain name.

Suppose you changed the tag value of CDN resources from N to M on April 9, 2023. If you want to split costs on May 4, 2023, the amortized costs for April would be attributed to tag M.

Commercial use

Enabling Cost Splitting

5

Shared costs can be split by domain name during unified accounting management.

During unified accounting management, member accounts can enable cost splitting.

Commercial use

Cost Management for Enterprises

6

The display style is adjusted for cost analysis.

The following optimizations are incorporated into the Cost Analysis page in Cost Center.

The filter Specification Code is renamed Specifications and Resource is renamed Resource Name/ID.

The filters Specifications, Usage Type, Cost Tag, and Cost Category support two-level filtering.

The columns Total, Accrued Total, and Forecast Total in the table are moved to the left of the columns indicating time ranges.

When costs are grouped by specifications, resource name/ID, or usage type, the Cloud Service column is provided to help identify which cloud service has incurred the cost.

5.The following optimizations are also incorporated into the exported file:(1) The columns Total, Accrued Total, and Forecast Total are moved to the left of the columns indicating time ranges.(2) When costs are grouped by usage type, the column Usage Type (amount unit/usage unit) is displayed.(3) When costs are grouped by resource name/ID, the columns Resource Name and Resource ID are displayed.(4) When costs are grouped by specifications, resource name/ID, usage type, the Cloud Service column is displayed as the second column to help identify which cloud service has incurred the cost.

Commercial use

Viewing Cost Analyses

7

More filtering items allowed

The maximum number of filtering items has been increased to 50 on the Cost Analysis, Budgets, and Reserved Instances page.

Commercial use

Viewing Cost Analyses

8

Cost amortization rules changed for yearly/monthly unsubscription orders

On and after February 1, 2023 GMT+08:00, both the refund and the unallocated fee of a yearly/monthly unsubscription order are recorded as the amortized cost for the unsubscription day. For orders unsubscribed from before February 1, 2023, the unallocated fee is recorded as the amortized cost for February 1, 2023.

Commercial use

Cost Breakdown Rules

9

Support for cost management by enterprise project

If customers want to group costs by enterprise project, they can create monitors of the Enterprise Projects type to track pay-per-use and yearly/monthly expenditure anomalies.

Commercial use

Overview

10

A satisfaction survey is available for customers to provide feedback on downloading cost analysis results and cost details.

When customers download cost analysis results or cost details on the Cost Analysis page, they will see a satisfaction survey.

Commercial use

Viewing Cost Analyses

11

Predefined tags created using TMS are available for activating.

On the Cost Tags page, predefined tags created using TMS are available for activating. There are two types of tags:

● Expenditure tags: Customers add such tags when creating resources. They will appear on the Cost Tags page 24 hours after their associated resources have generated expenditures.

● Predefined tags: Customers create such tags on the TMS console. They appear on the Cost Tags page immediately after being created. After you activate them, Cost Center starts applying them to cost data.

Commercial use

Activating Cost Tags

12

The alert frequency can be set to weekly.

When customers configure alerts on the Cost Anomaly Detection > Anomaly History page, they have the following two options for alert frequency:

● Daily: Alert summaries for each day will be sent to recipients at the specified time next day.

● Weekly: Alert summaries for each week will be sent to recipients at the specified time next Tuesday.

Commercial use

Enabling Alert

13

Cost Anomaly Detection can detect anomalies in yearly/monthly subscriptions.

On the Cost Anomaly Detection page in Cost Center, both pay-per-use and yearly/monthly expenditures can be monitored, and the monitoring focuses on the actual payments instead of payable amounts.

Commercial use

Cost Anomaly Detection

14

Cost categories available for grouping costs

A cost category is a tool that can automatically group you costs based on the rules. A cost category automatically groups you costs based on the rules you configure, such as linked account, service type, bill type, cost tag, and enterprise project, or even the custom rules configured for other cost categories.

Commercial use

Overview of a Cost Category

1

Official release

Cost Center offers a suite of tools for free that help you track, analyze, and explore your Huawei Cloud costs and usage.

Commercial use

Introduction