Flexible Budget Scoping: Provider, Resource, And Tags
In the realm of cloud cost management, achieving granular control over spending is paramount. This article delves into the concept of flexible budget scoping, a powerful feature that extends budget configuration beyond global limits. By enabling per-provider, per-resource-type, and per-tag budgets, organizations can gain unprecedented visibility and control over their cloud expenditures. Let's explore the motivation, technical specifications, and implementation details of this transformative approach.
The Motivation Behind Flexible Budget Scoping
The driving force behind flexible budget scoping lies in the diverse and often complex budgetary needs of modern cloud environments. Simply put, different teams and resources have different budget requirements. Consider these scenarios:
- Multi-cloud environments: Organizations leveraging multiple cloud providers, such as AWS, GCP, and Azure, often require separate budget allocations for each platform. This allows for accurate tracking of spending across different cloud ecosystems.
- Varying resource types: Compute resources, storage solutions, and databases exhibit distinct cost profiles. Setting individual budgets for each resource type enables granular control over specific areas of expenditure.
- Development vs. production: Environments catering to development and production workloads necessitate separate budget tracking. This ensures that development activities do not inadvertently impact production budgets.
- Team-specific budgets: Organizations often allocate budgets to individual teams based on their project requirements. Tag-based budgets facilitate the enforcement of these team-specific spending limits.
These diverse needs underscore the limitations of global budgets, which provide a high-level overview but lack the granularity required for effective cost management. Flexible budget scoping addresses this gap by empowering organizations to define budgets tailored to their unique operational landscape.
User Stories: Real-World Applications
To further illustrate the benefits of flexible budget scoping, let's examine a few user stories:
- FinOps manager: "As a FinOps manager, I want per-provider budgets so that I can allocate spending by cloud."
- Team lead: "As a team lead, I want per-tag budgets so that my team has its own spending limit."
- Platform engineer: "As a platform engineer, I want per-resource-type budgets so that I can control specific resource categories."
These user stories highlight the practical applications of flexible budget scoping in addressing real-world cost management challenges. By aligning budgets with specific providers, teams, and resource types, organizations can foster a culture of cost awareness and accountability.
Technical Specification: Configuration Schema
The cornerstone of flexible budget scoping lies in its configuration schema, which defines the structure for specifying budget parameters. Let's examine a sample configuration schema:
cost:
budgets:
# Global budget (fallback)
global:
amount: 500
currency: USD
period: monthly
alerts:
- threshold: 80
type: actual
# Per-provider budgets
providers:
aws:
amount: 200
alerts:
- threshold: 90
type: forecasted
gcp:
amount: 150
azure:
amount: 100
# Per-resource-type budgets
resource_types:
"aws:ec2/instance":
amount: 100
alerts:
- threshold: 75
type: actual
"aws:rds/instance":
amount: 80
"gcp:compute/instance":
amount: 50
# Per-tag budgets
tags:
"environment:production":
amount: 300
"team:platform":
amount: 150
"cost-center:engineering":
amount: 200
This YAML configuration file outlines the various budget scopes, including global, per-provider, per-resource-type, and per-tag budgets. Each budget definition includes parameters such as amount, currency, period, and alerts. The alerts section specifies thresholds for triggering notifications based on spending patterns. This comprehensive schema provides the flexibility to define budgets tailored to diverse organizational needs.
Budget Evaluation Order: A Hierarchy of Priorities
In scenarios where multiple budgets apply to a specific resource, a clear evaluation order is crucial. The following hierarchy governs the evaluation of budgets:
- Tag-based budgets: These budgets, being the most specific, take precedence over other scopes.
- Resource-type budgets: Budgets defined for specific resource types are evaluated next.
- Provider budgets: Budgets associated with individual cloud providers are considered subsequently.
- Global budget: The global budget serves as a fallback, providing a baseline spending limit.
This hierarchical approach ensures that the most granular budget definition is applied, allowing for fine-grained cost control.
CLI Output with Multiple Budgets: A Consolidated View
To provide users with a comprehensive overview of budget status, the command-line interface (CLI) output incorporates a multi-scope view. Here's an example:
╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ BUDGET STATUS │
│ ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│ │
│ GLOBAL │
│ Budget: $500.00/month | Spend: $420.00 (84%) │
│ █████████████████████████░░░░░ 84% ⚠ WARNING │
│ │
│ BY PROVIDER │
│ ┌─────────┬────────────┬─────────────┬────────┬───────────┐ │
│ │ Provider│ Budget │ Spend │ % │ Status │ │
│ ├─────────┼────────────┼─────────────┼────────┼───────────┤ │
│ │ AWS │ $200.00 │ $180.00 │ 90% │ ⚠ WARNING │ │
│ │ GCP │ $150.00 │ $140.00 │ 93% │ ⚠ WARNING │ │
│ │ Azure │ $100.00 │ $100.00 │ 100% │ 🚨 EXCEEDED│ │
│ └─────────┴────────────┴─────────────┴────────┴───────────┘ │
│ │
│ BY TAG (team) │
│ ┌──────────────┬────────────┬─────────────┬────────┬───────┐ │
│ │ Tag │ Budget │ Spend │ % │Status │ │
│ ├──────────────┼────────────┼─────────────┼────────┼───────┤ │
│ │ team:platform│ $150.00 │ $120.00 │ 80% │⚠ WARN │ │
│ │ team:data │ $100.00 │ $75.00 │ 75% │✓ OK │ │
│ └──────────────┴────────────┴─────────────┴────────┴───────┘ │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
This output presents a consolidated view of budget status across different scopes, including global, per-provider, and per-tag budgets. The use of visual cues, such as progress bars and status indicators, facilitates quick identification of potential budget overruns. This holistic perspective empowers users to make informed decisions and take proactive measures to optimize cloud spending.
Filter Flag for Specific Scope: Targeted Insights
To further enhance usability, a --budget-scope filter flag enables users to focus on specific budget scopes. For instance:
# Show only provider budgets
pulumicost cost --budget-scope provider
# Show only specific provider
pulumicost cost --budget-scope provider=aws
# Show tag-based budgets
pulumicost cost --budget-scope tag=team:platform
This filter flag empowers users to drill down into specific areas of interest, facilitating targeted analysis and decision-making. By isolating budget information relevant to their roles and responsibilities, users can gain deeper insights into cost drivers and identify opportunities for optimization.
Implementation Details: Data Structures and Cost Aggregation
The implementation of flexible budget scoping involves defining appropriate data structures and implementing cost aggregation logic. Let's delve into the technical details.
Data Structures: Representing Budget Configurations
To represent budget configurations, the following data structures can be employed:
type BudgetsConfig struct {
Global *BudgetConfig `yaml:"global,omitempty"`
Providers map[string]BudgetConfig `yaml:"providers,omitempty"`
ResourceTypes map[string]BudgetConfig `yaml:"resource_types,omitempty"`
Tags map[string]BudgetConfig `yaml:"tags,omitempty"`
}
type ScopedBudgetEvaluation struct {
Scope string // "global", "provider:aws", "type:aws:ec2/instance"
Budget BudgetConfig
Spend float64
Resources []ResourceCost
Status BudgetStatus
}
func EvaluateScopedBudgets(config BudgetsConfig,
costs []ResourceCost) []ScopedBudgetEvaluation {
// Group costs by scope
// Evaluate each scope against its budget
// Return all evaluations
}
The BudgetsConfig struct encapsulates budget definitions for various scopes, including global, providers, resource types, and tags. The ScopedBudgetEvaluation struct represents the evaluation of a budget within a specific scope, encompassing budget details, spending, associated resources, and status. The EvaluateScopedBudgets function serves as the core logic for evaluating budgets across different scopes.
Cost Aggregation by Scope: Grouping Expenditures
To accurately evaluate budgets, costs must be aggregated based on the defined scopes. Here are examples of cost aggregation functions:
func aggregateCostsByProvider(costs []ResourceCost) map[string]float64 {
result := make(map[string]float64)
for _, c := range costs {
provider := extractProvider(c.ResourceType)
result[provider] += c.MonthlyCost
}
return result
}
func aggregateCostsByTag(costs []ResourceCost,
tagKey string) map[string]float64 {
result := make(map[string]float64)
for _, c := range costs {
if value, ok := c.Tags[tagKey]; ok {
key := fmt.Sprintf("%s:%s", tagKey, value)
result[key] += c.MonthlyCost
}
}
return result
}
The aggregateCostsByProvider function groups costs by cloud provider, while the aggregateCostsByTag function aggregates costs based on specified tag keys. These functions form the foundation for evaluating budgets within specific scopes.
Acceptance Criteria: Ensuring Functionality
To ensure the successful implementation of flexible budget scoping, the following acceptance criteria must be met:
- [ ] Per-provider budget configuration and evaluation
- [ ] Per-resource-type budget configuration and evaluation
- [ ] Per-tag budget configuration and evaluation
- [ ] Global budget as fallback
- [ ] Multi-scope CLI output with Lip Gloss styling
- [ ]
--budget-scopefilter flag - [ ] Unit tests for scope aggregation
- [ ] Integration tests for multi-budget scenarios
These criteria provide a clear roadmap for development and testing, ensuring that the implemented solution aligns with the desired functionality.
Dependencies and Related Issues: Navigating the Development Landscape
The implementation of flexible budget scoping is contingent upon certain dependencies and related issues. These include:
- Depends on: #217 (MVP budget alerts)
- Depends on: #219 (exit codes - for scoped exit behavior)
- Related Issues:
- #217 - MVP budget alerts (prerequisite)
- #219 - Exit codes (related)
- #220 - Notifications (can be scope-aware)
Addressing these dependencies and related issues is crucial for a smooth and successful implementation.
Conclusion: Embracing Granular Cost Control
Flexible budget scoping represents a significant leap forward in cloud cost management. By enabling per-provider, per-resource-type, and per-tag budgets, organizations can gain unprecedented control over their cloud expenditures. This granular approach fosters a culture of cost awareness, empowers teams to manage their budgets effectively, and ultimately drives greater efficiency in cloud spending. To learn more about cloud cost management best practices, visit the Cloud Financial Management website.
