Google recently announced the launch of the Google Cloud Cost Attribution Solution, a set of tools designed to enhance cost management through improved metadata and labeling practices.
The company released the solution for its customers, who view managing cloud costs as a complex challenge. The solution allows organizations to identify the specific teams, projects, or services driving their expenses, providing for more informed financial decisions. Google states that whether new to Google Cloud or a long-time user, the solution offers valuable insights for cost optimization.
The solution's core is labels—key-value pairs that act as customizable metadata tags attached to cloud resources such as virtual machines and storage buckets. These labels provide granular visibility into costs by enabling users to break down expenses by service, team, project, or environment (development, production, etc.).
Tim Twarog, a FinOps SME, writes in an earlier LinkedIn blog post on GCP cost allocation strategies:
Tagging and labeling resources is a key strategy for cost allocation in GCP. Tags are key-value pairs that can be attached to resources. They allow for more granular cost tracking and reporting.
The tool allows businesses to:
- Generate detailed cost reports: Break down expenses by department, service, or environment.
- Make data-driven decisions: Optimize resource allocation and justify future cloud investments.
- Customize reporting: Tailor reports to the specific needs of any organization.
In addition, the solution addresses the challenge of label governance with proactive and reactive approaches. The proactive approach entails integrating labeling policies into infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform, ensuring all new resources are labeled adequately. The reactive approach identifies unlabeled resources and offers real-time alerts when new resources lack labels. The solution also automates the application of correct labels to ensure comprehensive cost visibility and near real-time alerts when resources are created or modified without the proper labels.
(Source: Google Cloud Blog Post)
Like Google’s solution, other cloud providers like Microsoft and AWS have tools that help their customers gain granular visibility into their cloud spending and the ability to optimize resource usage and make data-driven decisions to manage costs effectively.
Microsoft’s Azure, for instance, offers cost management tools that include budgeting, cost analysis, and recommendations for cost optimization, which integrates with other Azure services and provides detailed cost breakdowns. Meanwhile, AWS Cost Explorer allows AWS customers to visualize, understand, and manage their AWS costs and usage over time. It offers thorough insights and reports to identify cost drivers and optimize spending.
Lastly, the company will soon incorporate tag support in the solution, allowing users to organize resources across projects and implement fine-grained access control through IAM conditions.
