AWS: How to Set Up a Budget Before Using Amazon Web Services

→ Have you ever been shocked to see large bills the first time after using AWS? In this article, we will be seeing the way to set up an Amazon budget beforehand.

→ Initially, I was using AWS services in my previous company. An unknowing bill of $10,000 was generated, without using them entirely.

→ I would like everyone who is using AWS for corporate or personal use should be aware of this.

This article is divided into two sections:

a. Setting up AWS Budgets

b. Checking Bills

A. Setting up AWS Budget:

→ It is very important to set up an AWS budget beforehand to track charges that occurred and your target alarm. It will remind you you have reached x% or y% of your monthly bills.

→ AWS services are chargeable, based on pay-as-you-use. Adding budget is a good practice to track your overall monthly expense.

→ It is a good practice to set up some budget so that AWS.

Let us walk through the way we set the budget in AWS.

STEP1: Signup up for an account from console.aws.amazon.com and reach the dashboard page. Click My Billing Dashboard from dropdown

STEP2: Click Budget from left

STEP3: Click Create a budget button.

→ You need to add your monthly budget based on your service use (say $10 or $50) on the below page. For practice purposes, I am setting to $1.

→ On the below page, we can create as many alerts for the amount in percentage. We will set two at present — one when it reaches 80% of the monthly budget (Actual) and the second 60% of the monthly budget (Forecast).

→ The monthly budget alert is finally created.

→ We will receive notifications from AWS when a certain percentage is reached (which we have set in alert). We can stop/pause unnecessary services.

B. Checking Bills:

→ Based on the usage bills are generated. Every service is costed based on service usage.

→ Most of them will be initially free. Still, it is good practice to know the breakups of the monthly amazon bill.

→ So if you are in the AWS dashboard there are two types of users — IAM user and Root user. IAM users have lesser permissions than Root users.

→ If you are logging in IAM user, you need to give permissions from the root user. Else directly you can use the Root user.

→ IAM user: We need to log in with the root user and give permissions.

→ Root User: Log in with root credentials and follow below screenshots and videos.

→ Click on My Account under the profile name.

→Search for IAM user → Click Edit → checkmark Activate IAM Access→ Update

→ IAM user: Now when you refresh the same page. permission error is gone and now we have page access. Bills status is shown.

→ Bills are very important as we can track individual breakdown of bills which was charged per service. This can be checked Month wise as shown in the below screenshot.

Closing thoughts:

AWS has lots of interesting services to explore which will excite you as a developer. Before exploring them make sure you set up some budget so that Amazon will send notification alerts if you are near to your budget.

I will be writing more on different AWS services in detail and love to share with you.

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