Check RDS instance utilization and storage choices
Review Amazon RDS billing usage types separately so compute, storage, IOPS, backup, and deployment-related charges are not mistaken for database load.
BASH5 min read
Cloud cost guides
Find answers to common questions about cloud and AI costs.
45 guides
Review BigQuery reservation autoscale slot seconds by minute
Use reservation timeline metadata to review minute-level autoscale slot seconds for reservations in a selected region over the last day.
SQL5 min read
Measure AI cost per successful business outcome
Connect model, retry, evaluation, and supporting-service costs to a quality-qualified business result instead of reporting cost per token alone.
Steps7 min read
Review low-use SageMaker endpoints and notebook instances
Inventory running SageMaker endpoints and notebook instances, then review CloudWatch workload signals before requesting any capacity change.
Steps6 min read
Inspect Cloud Storage protection settings safely
Review Cloud Storage versioning, soft delete, retention policies, and project-level billing views with a read-only console procedure.
Steps5 min read
Find idle Azure Machine Learning inference capacity
Review low-demand managed online deployments and compute-cluster floors without treating low utilization as permission to remove capacity.
Steps7 min read
Compare Azure OpenAI provisioned and standard deployment costs
Compare standard token billing with provisioned throughput using workload shape, cache rate, PTU sizing, deployed hours, and current Azure rates.
Steps7 min read
Review Azure EA and MCA commitment scope
Review reservation and savings plan scopes for Azure Enterprise Agreement and Microsoft Customer Agreement commitments before changing who can consume the benefit.
Steps6 min read
Compare model quality and cost with a repeatable evaluation
Choose a model with the same task set, quality gates, latency measures, usage records, retry policy, and applicable provider pricing.
Steps7 min read
Check Cosmos DB hot partitions before reducing RUs
Use Normalized RU Consumption, 429s, and partition-key RU logs to spot concentrated load before changing provisioned throughput.
KQL5 min read
Check Azure Front Door request and transfer costs
Reconcile Front Door profile, request, edge-to-origin, and edge-to-client charges with cache behavior.
Steps6 min read
Budget for AI search and tool-call costs
Separate model, grounding, search, session, and provisioned-capacity assumptions so AI workflow budgets remain traceable to provider billing.
Steps6 min read
Review Azure inter-region data transfer costs
Classify Azure transfer charges by path, billing component, region, peering, replication, gateway, and service-specific behavior.
Steps7 min read
Compare GPU reservation cost with actual useful work
Compare commitment cost, provider-reported utilization, GPU activity, and locally defined output before changing reserved GPU capacity.
Steps6 min read
Allocate shared Azure platform costs transparently
Use Azure cost allocation rules for shared services while keeping allocated reporting separate from invoice reconciliation and billing responsibility.
Steps7 min read
Find costly Azure Data Factory activity patterns
Compare Azure Data Factory meter consumption with pipeline and activity runs to focus a design review on recurring orchestration, copy, or data-flow usage.
Steps8 min read
Compare AI token prices without mixing token types
Compare Azure OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, and Vertex AI pricing without blending input, output, cached, batch, and provisioned capacity.
Steps7 min read
Avoid double-counting cloud network charges
Reconcile transfer, processing, gateway, load balancer, and CDN lines by billing function and traffic path, not matching byte totals.
Steps7 min read
Understand Azure Backup storage and retention charges
Trace Azure Backup protected-instance and storage charges to vault redundancy, retention policies, snapshots, and retained recovery points.
Steps8 min read
Avoid buying cloud commitments from a single busy week
Review historical demand, benefit scope, recent purchases, workload changes, coverage, and utilization before approving a cloud commitment.
Steps6 min read
Review CUD sharing and billing-account scope
Check whether resource-based Compute Engine CUDs are shared at the billing-account level, then review each commitment’s attribution before comparing project costs.
Steps6 min read
Compare EC2 Reserved Instances and Savings Plans
Choose an EC2 commitment by matching workload stability, flexibility and capacity needs to official AWS rules.
Steps6 min read
Inspect CloudFront request and transfer charges
Trace CloudFront request volume, viewer transfer, cache misses and pricing-plan coverage before changing a distribution.
Steps5 min read
Review Transit Gateway and inter-AZ transfer costs
Inventory Transit Gateway attachments, measure directional traffic, and keep attachment, processing, and transfer charges distinct.
BASH7 min read