Monitoring Business Unit Costs with CostIQ

This section describes the CostIQ feature of Aviatrix CoPilot. CostIQ is available to users with the appropriate add-on license. You can enable the feature from Configuration > Settings in CoPilot.

Working with CostIQ

The CostIQ feature gives you visibility into the traffic data of your deployed networks that are managed by the Aviatrix Controller as they relate to your cost centers. This traffic data are reported as percentages of traffic generated by end instances in Spoke VPC/VNets.

The cost information displayed in CostIQ is grouped by:

  • Cost Center - A group of resources categorized by associated VPCs/VNets. These CoPilot Cost Centers contain resources used by your real-life cost centers or business units.

  • Shared Service - A cloud or network resource shared by multiple teams or cost centers. You define Shared Services by listing the IP addresses or IP CIDR ranges of the shared resource hosts.

  • The CostIQ feature requires that your Controller use software version 6.8 or later.

  • The VPC/VNets defined in each cost center are typically mutually exclusive. You can include the same VPC/VNet in multiple cost centers, but doing so can skew cost-reporting results.

You access CostIQ in CoPilot by going to Monitor > CostIQ or typing CostIQ in the navigation search. If you see a message on the CostIQ page that you require the Aviatrix universal subscription, see the Enabling the CostIQ feature section for information on how to enable the feature.

Overview of CostIQ

The CostIQ Overview tab shows cost information about Aviatrix-managed resources across your entire multicloud network. The charts and tables included show the traffic of your Cost Centers and Shared Services.

Use the Time Period options at the top of the page to adjust the time period for these data visualizations.

Chart or Graph Description

Top Cost Centers

Top Cost Centers lists the Cost Centers in your network with the highest costs. The percentage on the right shows each Cost Center’s expenditure as a percentage of total network costs.

Top Shared Services

Top Shared Services lists the Shared Services in your network with the highest costs. The percentage on the right shows each Shared Service’s expenditure as a percentage of total network costs.

Cost Center Traffic Trends

This graph shows traffic trends for each Cost Center in your network. Each Cost center is represented as a colored line on the graph. Each data point in each line represents one Cost Center’s percentage of traffic out of the total traffic for all Shared Services. Use this graph to review increases or decreases in the traffic of each Cost Center.

Shared Service Traffic Trends

This graph shows traffic trends for each Shared Service in your network. Each Shared Service is represented as a colored line on the graph. Each data point in each line represents one Shared Service’s percentage of traffic out of the total traffic for all Shared Services. Use this graph to review increases or decreases in the traffic of each Shared Service.

Cost Centers in CostIQ

The Cost Centers tab lists the Cost Centers you have created, the Cloud Tags that contain the Cost Center resources, and the percentage of total traffic for which each Cost Center is responsible.

Select a Cost Center to drill down on its information. A panel opens on the right to show more data.

Use the Time Period options at the top of the panel to adjust the time period for these data visualizations.

The table below describes the type of data displayed for each instance in the Cost Center:

Column Description

Resource Name

The name of this instance.

Rel. Traffic

The percentage of this instance’s traffic out of the total Cost Center traffic.

Abs. Traffic

The percentage of this instance’s traffic out of the total Cost Center’s traffic.

Traffic

The absolute value of this instance’s traffic.

For some VPCs and VNets in this panel, you can select a filter icon next to the VPC or VNet name to the drill down on the Spoke Gateways it includes. The following table describes the type of data displayed:

Column Description

Gateway

The gateway in this VPC or VNet.

Rel. Traffic

The percentage of this gateway’s traffic out of the total VPC or VNet traffic.

Abs. Traffic

The percentage of this gateway’s traffic out of the total Cost Center’s traffic.

Traffic

The absolute value of this VPC or VNet’s traffic.

Adding a New Cost Center

To add a new Cost Center, go to Monitor > CostIQ > Cost Centers.

Adding New Cost Centers

  1. On the Cost Centers tab, click + Cost Center.

  2. Name the Cost Center.

    • You can use the following values for Cost Center names: alphanumeric characters, whitespace, hyphens, and underscores.

    • The maximum length of a name is 128 characters.

    • Special characters are not allowed.

  3. Select the Spoke VPC/VNets to comprise this Cost Center.

Selecting Spoke VPC/VNets

To add resources to a Cost Center by selecting Spoke VPC/VNets, click on the Associate VPCs dropdown menu and select the necessary VPC/VNets.

Note that these VPCs or VNets should be the ones used by your real-life cost centers. The VPC/VNets defined in each cost center are typically mutually exclusive. You can include the same VPC/VNet in multiple cost centers, but doing so can skew cost-reporting results. For example, if you define 2 cost centers with VPC/VNets that overlap, the shared services report will show them both as consumers of the shared service.

After selecting which resources to include in this Cost Center, click Save. The new Cost Center appears in the table.

Editing Cost Centers

To edit a Cost Center, in the panel on the right, click the Edit icon. You can rename the Cost Centers or add and remove the resources included.

Deleting Cost Centers

  1. To delete a Cost Center, in the panel on the right, click the Delete icon.

  2. Click Confirm.

Deleting a Cost Center does not affect the VPCs/VNets it includes or any data; it only removes the Cost Center as a way of organizing and visualizing historical traffic data for your network.

Shared Services in CostIQ

The Shared Services page displays cost data for your Shared Services, or networking resources used by multiple teams or departments in your network. Shared Services are organized by the IP addresses of the resources hosts.

For example, a Shared Service could be an AWS Direct Connect connection that multiple teams use. The Shared Services view displays what percent of the connection’s total traffic each team is responsible for.

You can break down or organize the Shared Services drilldown by:

  • Cost Center - Select this view to see the traffic to the Shared Services for each Cost Center in your network.

  • Cloud Account - Select this view to see the traffic organized by each individual Cloud Account in your network (in AWS, Azure, GCP, or OCI).

Select a Cost Center to drill down on its information. A panel opens on the right to show data for each VPC and VNet in this Cost Center.

Use the Time Period options at the top of the page to adjust the time period of for these data visualizations.

Use the Amount for Time Period field to enter the amount of your bill for the specified time period. CoPilot creates a data visualization of the cost of this shared service for each resource defined in the cost center.

The table below shows data for each Cost Center or Cloud Account, depending on how you filtered the Breakdown of the data, by Cost Center or Cloud Account:

Column Description

Cost Center or Cloud Account

The Cost Center or Cloud Account in this Shared Service.

Cloud

The Cost Center or Cloud Account’s region.

Rel. Traffic

The percentage of this Cost Center or Cloud Account’s traffic to the Shared Shared Service out of total Shared Service traffic.

Traffic

The absolute value of this Cost Center or Cloud Account’s traffic.

Select a Cost Center or Cloud Account in this panel to drill down further to the VPC/VNets it includes:

Column Description

VPC/VNet

Each VPC/VNet in this Shared Service.

Rel. Traffic

The percentage of this VPC or VNet’s traffic to the Shared Service out of the total Cost Center or Cloud Account’s traffic to the Shared Service.

Abs. Traffic

The percentage of this VPC or VNet’s traffic to the Shared Service out of the Shared Service’s traffic.

Traffic

The absolute value of this VPC/VNet’s traffic.

Select a VPC or VNet in this panel to drill down further to the gateways it includes:

costiq-shared-service-drilldown-2
Column Description

Gateway

Each gateway in this VPC or VNet.

Rel. Traffic

The percentage of gateway traffic to the Shared Service out of the total VPC traffic to the Shared Service.

Abs. Traffic

The percentage of this gateway’s traffic to the shared Service out of the total Shared Service traffic.

Traffic

The absolute value of this gateway’s traffic.

Adding Shared Services

To add a new Shared Service, click + Shared Service near the top left.

  1. Name the Shared Service.

    • You can use the following values for Shared Service names: alphanumeric characters, whitespace, hyphens, and underscores.

    • The maximum length of a name is 128 characters.

    • Special characters are not allowed.

  2. Add the individual IP addresses or IP CIDR ranges to include in the Shared Service.

  3. Click Save.

Editing Shared Services

To edit a Shared Service, in the panel on the right, click the Edit icon. You can rename the Shared Services or add and remove the IP CIDR ranges it includes.

Deleting Shared Services

  1. To delete a Shared Service, in the panel on the right, click the Delete icon.

  2. Click Confirm.

Deleting a Shared Service does not affect the IP addresses or CIDRs it includes or any data; it only removes the Shared Service as a way of organizing and visualizing historical cost data for your network.

Enabling the CostIQ Feature

If you see a message on the CostIQ page (Monitor > CostIQ) that you require the Aviatrix Universal Subscription, in the cloud marketplace you must subscribe to and accept terms for the Aviatrix Cloud Network License Service in AWS or Azure or the Aviatrix Secure Networking Platform 2208-Universal 24x7 Support offer in GCP and OCI. Take note of your Customer ID for this offer.

If there is no pre-existing customer ID (you are a new user), you entered this customer ID when logging on to CoPilot. You do not need to reset the Customer ID on the License tab before enabling the feature.

If you have already subscribed to the Aviatrix Universal Subscription license, you do not need to subscribe again. You can just enable the feature from Configuration > Settings in CoPilot.

After subscribing to the license (if you are a new user), do the following to enable the CostIQ feature:

  1. In CoPilot, go to Settings > Configuration > License.

    controller customer id field

  2. In the Add-on Features list, click Enable for the CostIQ feature.

  3. Click the General tab and in the Features section, verify that CostIQ is On.

Enabling Feature after Changing Licenses

If you are a current user and you change licenses, you must reset the Customer ID before enabling a feature:

  1. After subscribing to the new license, log on to CoPilot and go to Settings > Configuration > License.

  2. Click Reset next to Customer ID.

  3. Enter the new customer ID.

  4. Select the I understand the implications checkbox.

  5. Click Reset.

  6. Under Add-on Features, enable the feature.