AWS Spend Report

In a Nutshell


What will I learn?	In this Tutorial we will create a simple report that shows our recent spend on AWS for the last six months, broken down by AWS service.
Difficulty

What you'll need

Software & Services

Docker version 16.14 or above
An AWS User or Role with permissions to use the AWS CostExplorer API
An active AWSH from AWSH Intro with some AWS credentials loaded

Permissions & Access

Below is a basic IAM Policy based on the one from the AWS documentation here that covers the permissions needed for this tutorial

AWSHTutorialPolicy
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ce:*"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Tutorial

In each of the examples below we will take advantage of several of the environment variables that are loaded and set when we activate a set of credentials in AWSH

AWSH❯
env | grep ^AWS_
AWS_ACCOUNT_ALIAS=dummy-account
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=eu-central-1
AWS_SESSION_EXPIRATION=2022-11-28 16:05:01
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=f3hfuss77fffdUToVx+T1iFNV+6tLgL3dUhCJY6jhPccRQW
AWS_ID_NAME=dummy-account/[email protected]
AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER=011111221051
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=ASIAQO7RUGABCDEFYXLOK
AWS_TOKEN_EXPIRY=1669651501

We will use these environment variables to generate useful report names

This tutorial also makes use of one of the built-in commands available in AWSH awsh list costs-by-month-and-service which allows us to generate our output report in multiple formats. To find out more about all of the helper commands and utilities available in AWSH check out the full documentation here.

Markdown Format Report

Create a Markdown header for our report

AWSH❯
cat > "${HOME}/workspace/${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}-AWS-Spend.md" <<EOF
# AWS Spend Report for A/C: ${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}

> This spend report was generated using AWSH on $(date) for
> AWS Account ${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER} with alias: ${AWS_ACCOUNT_ALIAS}

EOF

Get the data from the AWS API using AWSH

AWSH❯
awsh list costs-by-month-and-service -f pipe >> "${HOME}/workspace/${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}-AWS-Spend.md"

The Markdown format report is plain text but can be converted into many other common formats (HTML, PDF, MS Word, etc). One of our favourite online converters is https://dillinger.io/ or the extensions available for Microsoft VS Code

CSV Format Report

Get the data from the AWS API using AWSH and output as CSV

AWSH❯
awsh list costs-by-month-and-service -f csv > "${HOME}/workspace/${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}-AWS-Spend.csv"

HTML Format Report

Create an HTML header for our report

AWSH❯
cat > "${HOME}/workspace/${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}-AWS-Spend.html" <<EOF
<html>
<head>
    <title>AWS Spend Report for A/C: ${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>AWS Spend Report for A/C: ${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}</h1>
    <p>
        This spend report was generated using AWSH on $(date)
        for AWS Account ${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER} with alias: ${AWS_ACCOUNT_ALIAS}
    </p>
    <div>
EOF

Get the data from the AWS API using AWSH

AWSH❯
awsh list costs-by-month-and-service -f html >> "${HOME}/workspace/${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}-AWS-Spend.html"

Add the HTML page footer to make a valid HTML page

AWSH❯
echo "</div></body></html>" >> "${HOME}/workspace/${AWS_ACCOUNT_NUMBER}-AWS-Spend.html"

Now that you've had a look around why not check out the full documentation here.

Open Source

Did you know that both AWSH and BLOX are completely Open Source? That's right - the software is available free of charge, and we make some of our revenue by helping others install, use, and troubleshoot it. Take copy for yourself!

AWSH: Containerized tools with lightweight access to AWS CLI and APIs in mind.

BLOX: Containerized tools for engineering teams who need to work with AWS and IAC every day.

AWS Spend Report

What you'll need​

Software & Services​

Permissions & Access​

Tutorial​

Markdown Format Report​

CSV Format Report​

HTML Format Report​