Cost

Tag – Key + Value

A label applied to AWS resources; consists of a key and optional value; used for tracking, cost allocation, automation, and access control

AWS Budgets

Create cost or usage budgets; set alerts when thresholds are exceeded; can track overall costs, service costs, or linked account usage

Cost Explorer

Visualize and analyze AWS costs and usage; provides charts, reports, and trends; can filter by service, tag, account, or region

Tip:

For cost optimization questions, think:

track → tag, monitor → budgets, analyze → Cost Explorer.

You want to track costs for each department using AWS resources. What should you do?

A) Assign IAM roles
B) Tag resources with key/value pairs
C) Use CloudWatch metrics
D) Enable CloudTrail

Answer: B – Tags with key/value pairs allow cost allocation per department.

You want to receive an alert when your monthly S3 costs exceed $500. Which service should you use?

A) Cost Explorer
B) AWS Budgets
C) CloudWatch
D) Trusted Advisor

Answer: B – AWS Budgets allows you to set thresholds and receive alerts when exceeded

You want to identify which EC2 instances are driving the highest costs in your account over the past 3 months. Which service do you use?

A) AWS Budgets
B) CloudTrail
C) Cost Explorer
D) AWS RAM

Answer: C – Cost Explorer visualizes costs and usage trends by service, instance type, account, or tags.

You need to:

• Track costs per project

• Alert when budgets are exceeded

• Analyze trends over time

Which combination of AWS tools covers all three requirements?

A) Tags + Cost Explorer + AWS Budgets
B) IAM Roles + CloudTrail + Trusted Advisor
C) CloudWatch + Lambda + Cost Explorer
D) S3 + EC2 + CloudFront

Answer: A – Tags track cost allocation, Budgets alert when thresholds are exceeded, Cost Explorer analyzes usage trends.