Question #1962
A company has migrated multiple departments to AWS over the last 4 months. The company wants to track the cost distribution for each department and receive automated reports detailing this breakdown. Which solution MOST cost-effectively meets these requirements?
Use AWS Budgets to export cost data for the past 4 months into a spreadsheet. Manually filter the data by department.
Ingest AWS Cost and Usage Reports into an Amazon Redshift cluster. Use BI tools to query and visualize the department-specific costs.
Tag all AWS resources with a key representing the department name. Enable cost allocation tags. Use AWS Cost Explorer to generate the required reports.
Tag all AWS resources with a key for the department. Download detailed billing reports from the AWS Billing console and manually extract department costs.
Explanation
Option C is correct because:
1. Tagging Resources: Assigning tags to AWS resources (e.g., 'Department: HR') categorizes costs by department.
2. Cost Allocation Tags: Enabling these tags in the AWS Billing console ensures costs are tracked per tag.
3. AWS Cost Explorer: This tool natively supports filtering by tags, enabling automated, granular cost reports without additional infrastructure.
Why other options are incorrect:
- A: Manual filtering in spreadsheets is time-consuming and not automated.
- B: Using Amazon Redshift and BI tools adds complexity and cost for a simple use case.
- D: Manual extraction from billing reports is error-prone and lacks automation.
Key Points:
- Use resource tags and cost allocation tags for cost tracking.
- AWS Cost Explorer provides built-in, cost-effective reporting without third-party tools.
Answer
The correct answer is: C