Cost Policies

Note:Click the link in the Policy Name column to access the corresponding policy template.

Increase cost visibility and management in your multi-cloud world and take appropriate actions to run an efficient infrastructure.

The following table lists the cost policies along with their description.

Policy Name

Description

AWS Bucket Size Check 

Scans all S3 buckets in the given account and checks if the bucket exceeds a specified byte size.

AWS Burstable EC2 Instances 

Gathers Burst Credit and AWS CloudWatch CPU data for EC2 instances on 30-day intervals.

AWS Expiring Savings Plans 

Sends email notifications before AWS savings plans expire.

AWS New Marketplace Products 

Checks for newly purchased AWS Marketplace products and reports on them.

AWS Object Storage Optimization 

Checks for object store items for last modified date and moves the object to the cool or cold archive tiers after your approval.

AWS Old Snapshots 

Checks for snapshots older than specified number of days and, optionally, deletes them.

AWS Reserved Instances Recommendations 

Sends email notifications when AWS Reserved Instances (RI) recommendations are identified.

Note:These RI purchase recommendations are generated by AWS.

AWS Reserved Instances Utilization 

Sends email notifications when utilization falls below a threshold.

AWS Rightsize EBS Volumes 

Finds AWS GP2 volume types and recommends them for an upgrade to GP3, if this would result in savings.

AWS Rightsize EC2 Instances 

Checks for EC2 instances that have inefficient utilization for a specified number of days and downsizes or terminates them after approval.

AWS Rightsize RDS Instances 

Checks for RDS instances that have inefficient utilization for a user-specified number of days and downsizes or deletes them after approval.

AWS S3 Bucket Intelligent Tiering Check 

Scans all S3 buckets and reports if they don’t have intelligent tiering enabled.

AWS Savings Plan Recommendations 

Sends email notifications when AWS savings plan recommendations are identified.

Note:These recommendations are generated by AWS.

AWS Savings Plan Utilization 

Sends email notifications when AWS Savings Plan Utilizations are identified.

AWS Savings Realized from Reservations 

Calculates savings realized by Reserved Instance, Savings Plan, and Spot Instance purchases for AWS.

AWS Schedule Instance 

Enables you to schedule start and stop times for your instance, along with the option to terminate instances, update and delete schedules.

AWS Superseded EC2 Instances 

Checks for AWS EC2 instance types that have been superseded and, optionally, updates the instance type.

AWS Unused Classic Load Balancers 

Checks all classic load balancers to determine if any are unused (have no healthy instances). Then, you can approve the classic load balancers to be deleted.

Note:Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) supports three types of load balancers: Application Load Balancers, Network Load Balancers, and Classic Load Balancers. This policy only reports on Classic Load Balancers.

AWS Unused IP Addresses 

Checks AWS for unused IP addresses and deletes them.

AWS Unused Volumes 

Checks for unused volumes and if no read/write operations are performed within a specified number of days, optionally, deletes them.

Azure Blob Storage Optimization 

Checks Azure blob storage for the last modified date and moves the object to the cool or archive tier after your approval.

Azure China Common Bill Ingestion 

Automatically takes billing data for Azure China and sends the data to Flexera CBI, so that Azure China costs are visible in Flexera One.

Azure Databricks Rightsize Compute Instances 

Checks for instances that have inefficient utilization for a certain lookback period (in days).

Azure Hybrid Use Benefit for Linux Server 

Identifies Linux instances eligible for the Azure hybrid use benefit.

Azure Hybrid Use Benefit for SQL 

Identifies SQL instances eligible for the Azure hybrid use benefit.

Azure Hybrid Use Benefit for Windows Server 

Identifies Windows instances eligible for the Azure hybrid use benefit.

Azure New Marketplace Products 

Checks for newly purchased Azure Marketplace products and reports on them.

Azure Old Snapshots 

Checks for snapshots older than specified number of days and, optionally, deletes them.

Azure Reserved Instances Recommendations 

Sends email notifications when Azure Reserved Instances (RI) recommendations are identified.

Note:These RI purchase recommendations are generated by Microsoft Azure.

Azure Reserved Instances Utilization 

Sends email notifications when utilization falls below a threshold.

Azure Reserved Instances Utilization MCA 

Sends email notifications when utilization falls below a threshold.

Azure Rightsize Compute Instances 

Checks for instances that have inefficient utilization for the last 30 days and downsizes or deletes them after approval.

Azure Rightsize Managed Disks

Checks for underutilized managed disks and suggests recommendations for downgrading the managed disk tier if it results in savings and meets the required usage levels.

Azure Rightsize NetApp Files

Checks for oversized NetApp capacity pools and suggests recommendations for rightsizing the capacity pools and volumes to optimize efficiency and reduce costs.

Azure Rightsize SQL Databases 

Checks for inefficient Azure SQL single database services that are inside or outside the CPU threshold for the last 30 days and resizes them after approval.

Azure Savings Plan Recommendations 

Sends email notifications when it finds Azure savings plan recommendations for which the net savings exceed a threshold set in the policy.

Azure Savings Realized From Reservations 

Calculates savings realized by Reserved Instance purchases for Azure.

Azure Schedule Instance 

Schedules EC2 instances to start and stop at specific times based on a configuration stored in the instance's tags.

Azure SQL Databases Without Elastic Pools 

Checks a list of Azure SQL Servers and checks for Elastic DB Pools.

Azure Storage Accounts Without Lifecycle Management Policies 

Reviews a list of storage accounts and determines whether lifecycle policies are enabled.

Azure Superseded Compute Instances 

Checks for Azure instance types that have been superseded and, optionally, updates the instance type.

Azure Unused IP Addresses 

Checks for unused IP addresses in the given account and, optionally, deletes them.

Azure Unused Volumes 

Checks for unused volumes older than specified number of days and, optionally, deletes them.

Budget Alerts 

Leverages cloud budgets to detect if the budget expense has exceeded its allocated value.

Budget Alerts by Cloud Account 

Creates a monthly budget alert for a cloud vendor account.

Budget vs. Actual Spend Report

Sends an email report comparing actual spending with budgeted values.

Cheaper Regions 

Specifies which regions have cheaper alternatives by specifying the expensive region name and the cheaper region name for analysis.

Cloud Cost Anomaly Alerts 

Report any cloud cost anomalies detected by Flexera Cloud Cost Optimization.

Cloud Spend Forecast - Moving Average 

Pulls the cost data for the lookback period, and then generates a moving average forecast of cloud spend for the specified months.

Cloud Spend Forecast - Straight-Line (Linear Regression Model) 

Cloud Spend Forecast policies provide a number of ways to gain some insight into what your future spend may look like.

The following policies can be applied:

Cloud Spend Forecast - Straight-Line (Linear Regression Model)
Cloud Spend Forecast - Straight-Line (Simple Model)
Cloud Spend Forecast - Moving Average

This policy uses the Straight-Line method using the Linear Regression model, which uses a more sophisticated calculation than the Simple model to forecast your spend.

You can choose to forecast at the Billing Center or entire Organization level, specify how many months of historical data should be considered, and specify how many months should be forecasted. In addition, you can choose to breakdown forecasted costs by the following dimensions: category, region, service, and vendor account (for example, AWS account, Azure subscription, and so on).

Cloud Spend Forecast - Straight-Line (Simple Model) 

Predicting what you may spend on cloud is a challenging task given the variable nature of cloud consumption and the effects of optimization activities such as reservations and rightsizing. Our Cloud Spend Forecast policies provide a number of ways to gain some insight into what your future spend may look like.

The following policies can be applied:

Cloud Spend Forecast - Straight-Line (Linear Regression Model)
Cloud Spend Forecast - Straight-Line (Simple Model)
Cloud Spend Forecast - Moving Average

This policy uses the Straight-Line method using the Simple model, which uses a more basic calculation than the Linear Regression model to forecast your spend.

You can choose to forecast at the Billing Center or entire Organization level, specify how many months of historical data should be considered, and specify how many months should be forecasted. In addition, you can choose to breakdown forecasted costs by the following dimensions: category, region, service, and vendor account (for example, AWS account, Azure subscription, and so on).

Currency Conversion 

Creates an adjustment rule that converts the currency of the cost of the cloud vendor of choice.

Email Cost Optimization Recommendations 

Emails a list of cost recommendations pulled from the Flexera Optimization dashboard.

Google Committed Use Discount (CUD) 

Sends email notifications for all Google Cloud Platform CUDs.

Google Committed Use Discount Recommender 

Finds Google Cloud Platform committed use discount recommendations and reports when it finds them.

Google Expiring Committed Use Discount (CUD) 

Sends email notifications when Google Cloud Platform CUDs are about to expire.

Google Idle Cloud SQL Instance Recommender 

Reports on any idle Cloud SQL instances identified by the Google Recommender service. You can then choose to stop or delete the Cloud SQL instance if desired. Optionally, you can filter results by label, project ID/name, or region.

Google Idle Compute Instances 

Checks for Google Cloud Platform compute instances that are idle for the last 30 days and terminates them after approval.

Google Idle IP Address Recommender 

Finds idle IP addresses and reports when it finds them. You can then delete the idle IP addresses.

Google Idle Persistent Disk Recommender 

Finds idle persistent disk recommendations and reports when it finds them. You can then delete the idle volumes.

Google Object Storage Optimization 

Checks Google Cloud Platform storage objects for the last updated time and moves the object to nearline or coldline. To delete the object, enable the delete action as mentioned in README.md.

Google Old Snapshots 

Checks for snapshots older than specified number of days and, optionally, deletes them.

Google Recommender Policy 

Finds Google Recommendations and reports when it finds them.

Google Rightsize CloudSQL Instances 

Checks Google Cloud Platform SQL instances based on provided CPU threshold and resizes them after approval.

Google Rightsize VM Recommender 

Finds underutilized and idle Google VM instances and downsizes, stops, or deletes them after approval.

Google Schedule Instance 

Enables you to schedule start and stop times for your instance, along with the option to terminate instance, update and delete schedule.

Kubecost Cluster Rightsizing Recommendations 

Recommends Kubernetes cluster configuration for performance and cost optimization.

Kubecost Request Rightsizing Recommendations 

Recommends container resource reservation based on historical utilization and cost optimization.

Low Account Usage 

Analyzes all account usage and recommends consolidation or deletion.

Low Service Usage 

Analyzes all service usage and recommends consolidation or deletion.

New Service Usage 

Analyzes bills for new service usage and sends email notifications.

Oracle Cloud Common Bill Ingestion 

Downloads cost reports from Oracle Cloud (OCI) and then uploads them to a Flexera CBI endpoint.

Reserved Instance Report by Billing Center 

Generates a reserved instances report by billing center.

Reserved Instances Coverage 

Sends email notifications on reserved instance coverage.

Scheduled Report 

Allows you to configure scheduled reports that will provide summaries of cloud cost.

Turbonomic Allocate Virtual Machine Recommendations AWS 

Utilizes Turbonomic endpoint to provide AWS VM allocation recommendations for Reserved Instance coverage. From these recommendations, we provide monthly savings estimates based on Turbonomic per hour costs.

Turbonomic Allocate Virtual Machine Recommendations Azure 

Utilizes Turbonomic endpoint to provide Azure VM allocation recommendations for Reserved Instance coverage. From these recommendations, we provide monthly savings estimates based on Turbonomic per hour costs.

Turbonomic Allocate Virtual Machine Recommendations Google 

Utilizes Turbonomic endpoint to provide GCP VM allocation recommendations for Reserved Instance coverage. From these recommendations, we provide monthly savings estimates based on Turbonomic per hour costs.

Turbonomic Buy Reserved Instances Recommendations AWS 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions API to provide purchase recommendations for AWS reserved instances. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Buy Reserved Instances Recommendations Azure 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions API to provide purchase recommendations for Azure reserved instances. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Delete Unattached Volumes Recommendations AWS 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for deleting unattached AWS volumes. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Delete Unattached Volumes Recommendations Azure 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for deleting unattached Azure volumes. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Delete Unattached Volumes Recommendations Google 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for deleting unattached Google Cloud Platform volumes. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Rightsize Databases Recommendations AWS 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for rightsizing AWS databases and database servers. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Rightsize Databases Recommendations Azure 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for rightsizing Azure databases and database servers. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Rightsize Virtual Machines Recommendations AWS 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for rightsizing AWS virtual machines. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Rightsize Virtual Machines Recommendations Azure 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for rightsizing Azure virtual machines. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Rightsize Virtual Machines Recommendations Google 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for rightsizing Google Cloud Platform virtual machines. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Rightsize Virtual Volumes Recommendations AWS 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for rightsizing AWS virtual volumes. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Turbonomic Rightsize Virtual Volumes Recommendations Azure 

Uses the Turbonomic Actions and Business Units API endpoints to provide recommendations for rightsizing Azure virtual volumes. Details on these endpoints can be found in the readme file of the policy.

Vendor Commitment Forecast 

Allows the user to specify a commitment target value (based on the commitment amount agreed with your cloud service provider/s), and tracks the current commitment spend to date, as well as the projected commitment spend over a period.