Building a serverless automated Cost Visibility report

2024-04-12 3 min read Projects Barny Baron

Journey: 📊 Community Builder 📊

Subject matter: Building on AWS

Task: Building a serverless automated Cost Visibility report

I recently shared an article relating to cost visibility on LinkedIn Here

This project is all about observability, and understanding what is happening in the account.

Using the 6 Pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, Cost Optimisation will be achieved in this build.

I will be setting up a serverless cost monitoring and reporting system that uses Email to notify on spending patterns.

AWS

Credit: This serverless architecture was created using some guidance from Pushkar Joshi on Medium Here and TechStoryLines Here. I picked bits from each article to help me fulfill my requirements.

What did I use to build this environment?

Lambda [with layers]
Amazon Simple Email Service
Amazon EventBridge
AWS Management Console
IAM

What is built?

A configured, layered Lambda function using Python
A call to the AWS Cost Explorer API
A verified email service
An Amazon EventBridge configuration to call the Lambda function on a rate-based schedule

Using the principle of least privilege:

Taken from the AWS documentation Here:

“The principle of least privilege states that identities should only be permitted to perform the smallest set of actions necessary to fulfill a specific task.”

To obtain the correct Lambda Permission for this, I used some further documentation Here.

I used the Cost Explorer API which enables me to programmatically query data for the cost and usage of AWS services.

This solution uses a Lambda function to query aggregated data from the API, format that data, and send it to a defined list of recipients.

Once I had configured all of the areas, I successfully received a cost visibility report!