Today, Vantage announces support for account based float of savings plan and reserved instance fees based on which linked account that discount was realized in. By default, all Vantage customers will now see fees for Reserved Instances and Savings Plans assigned to the AWS account which benefited from a discount instead of the account which purchased the commitment. All Cost Reports with amortization enabled have been automatically updated and backfilled to reflect this new usage based allocation.
Previously, any fees for Reserved Instances or Savings Plans purchased on AWS were attributed to the account which made the purchase. When filtering a Cost Report to an AWS member account you would see discounts reflected, however the fee for the purchase was not present. This made performing accurate chargebacks for a team difficult as the expense for purchasing the commitment was attributed to the account which made the purchase (usually the management account).
Now, Cost Reports will automatically show the fees for reserved instances and savings plans allocated into the accounts which received the discounts. When creating a Cost Report filtered to a specific account you will see the appropriate fees appear on this report. As before you can turn amortization off for a Cost Report and this behavior will be disabled.
To see this in action, head to any Cost Report containing a reservation or savings plan. For more information on the options for displaying costs, please see the Cost Reports documentation page.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is being launched today?
Today, Vantage is launching account based float of savings plan and reserved instance fees based on which account that discount was realized in.
2. Who is the customer?
The customer is any Vantage user who uses AWS and has purchased Reserved Instances or Savings Plans and has a multi-account organizational structure where multiple linked/member accounts realize discounted-usage.
3. How much does this cost?
There is no additional cost and this is the new default experience on Vantage for all users in all tiers, including the free tier.
4. Which types of costs are affected?
- Fees for no upfront, upfront or partial upfront AWS reserved instances
- Fees for no upfront, upfront or partial upfront AWS savings plans
5. Why is amortization required for this functionality?
Amortization is required in order to associate the fee with a specific usage record.
6. Can I turn this off in settings for my account?
No, this can not be toggled at the account level. However, when you create new Cost Reports you can toggle off Amortization.
7. How are reserved instances and savings plans allocated to member accounts?
AWS applies savings plans and reserved instances first in the account in which they are purchased and then will “float” between linked accounts based on the highest discount percentage available. However, the fee paid for the commitment does not float and will stay in the account in which the commitment was purchased.
8. What happens to reserved instances and savings plans which are overcommitted and not used?
The fee will remain assigned to the account which purchased the commitment.
9. How does this differ from Cost Explorer?
Cost Explorer only shows fees within the account which made the commitment/purchase. Vantage shows the fee from which the account was realized in by default. Vantage offers a superset of functionality versus Cost Explorer.
