SCAD Containers Cost Allocation Dashboard

Introduction

The SCAD Containers Cost Allocation Dashboard provides insights into EKS and ECS in-cluster cost based on data from CUR’s Split Cost Allocation Data (SCAD) feature. DevOps teams, FinOps team or any relevant stakeholder can gain insights into cost of Kubernetes workloads inside their EKS and ECS clusters, down to the EKS pod/ECS task level, and aggregated based on different Kubernetes constructs (pod, namespace, controller, and more) or ECS and Batch dimensions. You can use it to implement showback and chargeback methodologies for multi-tenant EKS and ECS clusters. The dashboard’s visualizations include high-level KPI visuals to understand general spend, and interactive visuals that allow easy-to-use experience to drill down into EKS and ECS in-cluster cost.

The dashboard has three tabs:

• Executive Summary:

  • KPI visuals per cost metric (CPU cost, RAM cost, shared cost, total cost)

  • Total Cost by Account ID

  • Top Spending Clusters

• Workloads Explorer:

  • Interactive stacked-bar chart and pivot table visuals that show cost by different dimensions based on in-dashboard aggregations and filters

• Cluster Breakdown

  • Coverage and drill-down visuals

Demo Dashboard

Get more familiar with Dashboard using the live, interactive demo dashboard following this link

SCAD - Containers Cost Allocation Dashboard

CID’s Containers Cost Allocation Dashboards Comparison

The CID framework has two Containers Cost Allocation dashboards:

• This one, which is based on CUR’s Split Cost Allocation Data (SCAD)

• The Kubecost Containers Cost Allocation Dashboard, which is based on data collection from Kubecost

Please visit review the Containers Cost Allocation dashboards comparison in the FAQs for more information.

Prerequisites

1. Deploy one or more of the foundational dashboards: CUDOS, Cost Intelligence, or KPI Dashboard.

2. Enable Split Cost Allocation Data:

   1. In Cost Management Preferences:

      

      You can enable SCAD for ECS, SCAD for EKS or both. If you enable SCAD for EKS, selecting "Resource requests" will include only resource requests data, without actual usage. To have actual usage data for your pods in CUR, either select the "Amazon Managed Service for Promentheus" option and follow this guide, or select the "Amazon CloudWatch Container Insights" option and follow this guide

   2. In your CUR:

      Legacy CUR

      

      CUR 2.0

      

3. Make sure that the following AWS-generated cost allocation tags are active:

   Amazon EKS

   

   Amazon ECS

   

   AWS Batch

   

   Please notice that these tags are present only once you enabled SCAD for the relevant service (EKS/ECS), and that it takes some time for them to be present after enabling SCAD. The tags may not be present if you don’t use the respective service.

4. Wait till the SCAD data updated in Athena:

After enabling Split Cost Allocation Data for EKS or ECS, and activating the AWS-generated cost allocation tags, allow at least 24h (can get up to 48h) for new columns and data to be reflected in Athena CUR table.

Also, please note that CUR Backfill isn’t supported for SCAD. Even if you request the CUR Backfill from AWS Support, the SCAD fields won’t be populated. Data will only be populated for the current month, as stated in the SCAD documentation:

Once activated, split cost allocation data automatically scans for tasks and containers. It ingests the telemetry usage data for your container workloads and prepares the granular cost data for the current month.

To validate that the new Split Cost Allocation Data columns exist in CUR:

Legacy CUR

1. Open Athena console and change to CUR database

2. Expand CUR table and filter it as in the below screenshots to view the columns: Split line item columns (relevant for EKS and ECS):

   

   EKS cost allocation tags (relevant only if you’re using EKS):

   

   ECS cost allocation tags (relevant only if you’re using ECS):

   AWS Batch cost allocation tags (relevant only if you’re using AWS Batch on ECS):

   

CUR 2.0

Run the following Athena queryin against the CUR 2.0 table:

EKS cost allocation tags columns (relevant only if you’re using EKS):

SELECT DISTINCT "key"
FROM "<table_name>"
CROSS JOIN UNNEST(MAP_KEYS("resource_tags")) AS "t"("key")
WHERE "key" LIKE 'aws_eks%'

Expected result:

+---+-----------------------+
| # |          key          |
+---+-----------------------+
| 1 | aws_eks_node          |
| 2 | aws_eks_deployment    |
| 3 | aws_eks_namespace     |
| 4 | aws_eks_cluster_name  |
| 5 | aws_eks_workload_name |
| 6 | aws_eks_workload_type |
+---+-----------------------+

ECS cost allocation tags columns (relevant only if you’re using ECS):

SELECT DISTINCT "key"
FROM "<table_name>"
CROSS JOIN UNNEST(MAP_KEYS("resource_tags")) AS "t"("key")
WHERE "key" LIKE 'aws_ecs%'

Expected result:

+---+----------------------+
| # |         key          |
+---+----------------------+
| 1 | aws_ecs_cluster_name |
| 2 | aws_ecs_service_name |
+---+----------------------+

AWS Batch cost allocation tags columns (relevant only if you’re using AWS Batch on ECS):

SELECT DISTINCT "key"
FROM "<table_name>"
CROSS JOIN UNNEST(MAP_KEYS("resource_tags")) AS "t"("key")
WHERE "key" LIKE 'aws_batch%'

Expected result:

+---+-------------------------------+
| # |              key              |
+---+-------------------------------+
| 1 | aws_batch_job_definition      |
| 2 | aws_batch_job_queue           |
| 3 | aws_batch_compute_environment |
+---+-------------------------------+

Only once you see all these columns (respective for the service you use), proceed with the dashboard installation below.

Deployment

CloudFormation

Note

Prerequisite: To install this dashboard using CloudFormation, you need to install Foundational Dashboards CFN with version v4.0.0 or above as described here

1. Log in to to your Data Collection Account.

2. Click the Launch Stack button below to open the pre-populated stack template in your CloudFormation.

   

3. You can change Stack name for your template if you wish.

4. Leave Parameters values as it is.

5. Review the configuration and click Create stack.

6. You will see the stack will start in CREATE_IN_PROGRESS. Once complete, the stack will show CREATE_COMPLETE

7. You can check the stack output for dashboard URLs.

   Note

   Troubleshooting: If you see error "No export named cid-CidExecArn found" during stack deployment, make sure you have completed prerequisite steps.

Command Line

Alternative method to install dashboards is the cid-cmd tool.

1. Log in to to your Data Collection Account.

2. Open up a command-line interface with permissions to run API requests in your AWS account. We recommend to use CloudShell.

3. In your command-line interface run the following command to download and install the CID CLI tool:

   pip3 install --upgrade cid-cmd

4. In your command-line interface run the following command to deploy the dashboard:

   cid-cmd deploy --dashboard-id scad-containers-cost-allocation

   Please follow the instructions from the deployment wizard. More info about command line options are in the Readme or cid-cmd --help.

Note

Please note that DataExport can take up to 24-48 hours to deliver the first reports. If you just installed Data Exports, the dashboard will be most likely empty. Please come back after 24 hours.

Update

Please note that dashboards are not updated with update of CloudFormation Stack. When new version of the dashboard template is released, you can update your dashboard by running the following command in your command-line interface:

cid-cmd update --dashboard-id scad-containers-cost-allocation

Note:

Starting from version (v2.0.0), the scad_cca_hourly_resource_view QuickSight dataset and Athena view are no longer used by the dashboard, and can be deleted. Please check the SCAD Containers Cost Allocation Dashboard v2.0.0 changelog for more information.

Learn more

• Split Cost Allocation Data for EKS documentation:

  • SCAD EKS what’s new post

  • SCAD ECS and AWS Batch what’s new post

  • SCAD EKS Launch blog post

  • SCAD ECS Launch blog post

  • Understanding split cost allocation data

  • EKS Cost Monitoring

  • Legacy CUR Dictionary - Split Cost Allocation Data line items

  • CUR 2.0 Dictionary - Split Cost Allocation Data line items

• CUR Query Library - sample queries

Authors

• Udi Dahan, Technical Account Manager

Feedback & Support

Follow Feedback & Support guide

Have a success story to share with the Team, suggest an improvement or report an error?

• Please email: [e-mail]

Note

These dashboards and their content: (a) are for informational purposes only, (b) represent current AWS product offerings and practices, which are subject to change without notice, and (c) does not create any commitments or assurances from AWS and its affiliates, suppliers or licensors. AWS content, products or services are provided "as is" without warranties, representations, or conditions of any kind, whether express or implied. The responsibilities and liabilities of AWS to its customers are controlled by AWS agreements, and this document is not part of, nor does it modify, any agreement between AWS and its customers.