Managing data transfer costs
Use Cost Explorer as a starting point to manage and visualize your data transfer costs. Just like any other resource, data transfer is part of your inventory. Arguably, it’s easier to have a firm grasp of (virtually) tangible AWS resources such as EC2 instances over intangibles such as data transfer. But because Cost Explorer is free and can be used out of the box, it can help reveal data transfer costs that are seemingly intangible.
In Cost Explorer, use the suggested filters in this section to create reports that clarify your data transfer use on AWS. Apply filters at the service level, focusing on EC2-Instances and EC2-ELB, as shown in Figure 8.7. This reduces the amount of data we need to look at and most data transfer will also be driven by these two services:
Figure 8.7 – Service filters for two main contributors to data transfer
The other helpful filter is Usage Type Group. There are three usage types to...
