Configuring a Cost Report

Use the configuration options in Cost Atlas to control the scope, structure, and type of cost data you want to analyze. You can adjust time filters, grouping levels, filters, and cost type to generate custom reports based on your analysis requirements.

Date Range

• Predefined Range: Quickly access relevant cost data by selecting a range such as “Last 2 Weeks” or “Month-to-Date”.

• Custom Range: If you need to analyze costs over a specific period, define a custom date range to focus on the exact time frame.

Granularity Method

You can aggregate cost data in three different ways, depending on the granularity you need for your analysis:

• Daily

• Weekly

• Monthly

Cost Representation Type

You can choose the most relevant Cost Representation Type to gain the insights you need:

• Unblended Cost – Shows the raw usage cost at standard rates, before credits or account-level discounts.

• Net Unblended Cost – Reflects the actual billed amount after applying credits and discounts to unblended costs.

• Blended Cost – Distributes shared resource costs across linked accounts, offering an averaged view under consolidated billing.

• Amortized Cost – Spreads upfront Reserved Instance or Savings Plan fees evenly across the commitment period for long-term visibility.

• Net Amortized Cost – Combines amortized costs with credits and discounts to reveal your true, all-in long-term spending.

Grouping Costs

To help structure and analyze your cloud expenditure, you can group your cost data by various dimensions.

You can group by using the following dimensions:

Cloud	Group By Option	Description
AWS	Account	AWS account.
AWS	API Operation	Specific API operations performed.
AWS	Availability Zone	AWS Availability Zone where resources are deployed.
AWS	Billing Entity	Billing entity associated with the usage.
AWS	Charge Type	Charge classification such as usage, recurring, or one-time fees.
AWS	Cost Center	Assigned cost center.
AWS	Cost Center Category	Defined cost center categories.
AWS	Database Engine	Database engine type (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL).
AWS	Instance Type	EC2 or database instance type.
AWS	Legal Entity	Legal entity associated with the account.
AWS	Platform	Operating system or platform type.
AWS	Purchase Option	Reserved, on-demand, or other purchase options.
AWS	Region	AWS region.
AWS	Resource	Individual resource identifiers.
AWS	Service	AWS service.
All clouds	Tag	User-defined tags.
AWS	Tenancy	Resource tenancy (shared or dedicated).
AWS	Usage Type	AWS usage type classification.
All clouds	Virtual Tag	Virtual tags created in OneLens for additional categorization.
Azure	Benefit Name	Applied reservation or savings plan name.
Azure	Charge Type	Cost record type classification (usage, purchase, refund)
Azure	Frequency	Billing recurrence indicator
Azure	Meter	Unique billing meter identifier
Azure	Meter Category	Top-level Azure service classification
Azure	Meter Subcategory	Azure service feature or tier breakdown
Azure	Partner Name	CSP or reseller partner identifier
Azure	Pricing Model	Billing arrangement type (on-demand, reservation, spot)
Azure	Product	Purchased Azure product or SKU name
Azure	Product Order Name	Enrollment or order grouping label
Azure	Provider	Infrastructure provider type
Azure	Publisher Name	Marketplace or service publisher identity
Azure	Publisher Type	Publisher origin classification (Microsoft, third-party)
Azure	Resource Group Name	Azure resource group container name
Azure	Resource Location	Deployed Azure region or datacenter
Azure	Resource Type	Azure ARM resource type identifier
Azure	Service Family	High-level Azure service grouping (Compute, Storage, Networking)
Azure	Subscription	Azure billing subscription scope
GCP	Cost Type	Charge classification (regular, tax, credit, adjustment)
GCP	Country	Billing or usage geographic country
GCP	Folders	GCP resource hierarchy folder path
GCP	Labels	User-defined key-value resource tags
GCP	Location	GCP multi-region or location grouping
GCP	Organization	GCP organization-level billing entity
GCP	Project	GCP project scope for cost attribution
GCP	Region	GCP compute region identifier
GCP	Resource Global Name	Fully-qualified GCP resource URI
GCP	Resource Name	Short display name of provisioned resource
GCP	Seller	Cost origin classification (Google, third-party reseller)
GCP	Service	GCP product service name (Compute Engine, BigQuery, etc.)
GCP	SKU	Granular billable unit or pricing item identifier
GCP	System Labels	Google-managed automatic metadata labels
GCP	Zone	GCP availability zone within a region
OCI	Availability Domain	OCI datacenter within a region
OCI	Compartment ID	Unique identifier for OCI resource compartment
OCI	Compartment Name	Logical resource grouping container name
OCI	Product Description	OCI service or feature display name
OCI	Product SKU	Billable product pricing unit identifier
OCI	Region	OCI deployed datacenter region
OCI	Resource ID	Unique OCID of the provisioned resource
OCI	Service	Top-level OCI service classification (Compute, Object Storage, etc.)
OCI	Subscription	OCI billing subscription or contract scope
OCI	Tenant ID	OCI tenancy-level billing entity identifier

NOTE

OneLens supports grouping up to four levels, enabling multi-dimensional cost analysis for deeper insights.

Use Case

A Finance Director needs to understand the distribution of cloud costs across different business units and resource types to find potential cost-saving opportunities.

Solution: The finance team utilizes the Group By feature across four levels:

• Cost Center – Groups costs based on departments, such as R&D, Marketing, and Operations, spanning all connected cloud providers.

• Service – Breaks down costs by specific cloud services within each cost center, such as AWS EC2, Azure Virtual Machines, GCP Compute Engine, or OCI Block Storage.

• Instance Type – Further groups compute costs by instance type (e.g., AWS m5.large, Azure Standard_D4s_v3, GCP n2-standard-4), highlighting performance and cost considerations across providers.

• Resource – Identifies specific resources - such as individual EC2 instances, Azure SQL databases, or GCP BigQuery datasets, that contribute to the overall costs.

Filters

Filters help refine cost reports by focusing on specific data points.

Here is how you apply filters:

1. Navigate to the Filters section in the Cost Atlas.

2. Select multiple conditions to filter data using an AND condition.

3. Add rules by selecting:

   1. Field: Choose a cost attribute (e.g., Service, Account, Usage Type, Cost Center).

   2. Operator: Available operators for setting filter conditions include In or Not In.

   3. Value: Enter the specific data point to filter (e.g., EC2, us-east-1, >$1000).

4. Click Apply to filter cost data and focus on relevant insights.

Use Case

A cloud engineer wants to analyze storage costs for a specific cloud region and service to track data transfer expenses more effectively.

Solution: The engineer applies the following filters:

• Service: Amazon S3 or Storage Accounts

• Region: us-east-1 or US East 2

The Cost Atlas then displays cost data specifically for Storage Accounts in the US East 2 region, helping the engineer track and investigate any rising data transfer costs.

Next: Save Your Cost Report View

Once the report is configured with the required time range, filters, grouping, and cost type, you can preserve the setup by saving it as a view. Learn how to save your cost report view