Connect Alibaba Cloud

The Alibaba Cloud integration imports the bill exports that Alibaba Cloud pushes to an Object Storage Service (OSS) bucket into Cloud Intelligence, so you can analyze Alibaba Cloud costs alongside your other cloud providers in Cloud Analytics. It reads Alibaba Cloud's FOCUS billing export as the cost of record, refines split-type products (OSS buckets, CDN domains, shared bandwidth) with the Split Details export, and surfaces Alibaba Cloud's Cost Details export as the Amortized cost metric.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following:

• An Alibaba Cloud international-site account (alibabacloud.com) on the new billing version. Main accounts and Finance Cloud master accounts are supported.

• An OSS bucket in the account to receive the bill exports.

• A RAM user with programmatic access and the AliyunOSSReadOnlyAccess policy. Add AliyunBSSReadOnlyAccess if you want DoiT to run billing API diagnostics.

• A DoiT account with the Billing Profiles Admin permission.

Required credentials

Field	Description	Where to find it
Account UID	Your 16-digit Alibaba Cloud account ID	Alibaba Cloud console, top-right account menu
RAM AccessKey ID and Secret	AccessKey pair of the RAM user	RAM console > Users > select the user > Credential > Create AccessKey
OSS Bucket Name	The bucket your bill subscriptions push to	OSS console > Buckets
OSS Region	The region of that bucket, for example us-east-1 or ap-southeast-1	Bucket Overview > Region
FOCUS Billing Data directory	The OSS Directory you entered when creating the FOCUS bill subscription	Expenses and Costs > Billing > Bill Subscription
Split Details, Cost Details, Bill Details directories (optional)	The OSS Directories of the other subscriptions	Same page

Set up bill subscriptions in Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud pushes bills to OSS through bill subscriptions. Create one per export type:

1. Sign in to the Alibaba Cloud console and open Expenses and Costs > Billing > Bill Subscription.

2. Select Create Bill Subscription. The first time, select Authorize in the banner to grant the AliyunConsumeDump2OSSRole service role, then reload the page.

3. Under Export File, select FOCUS Billing Data. Select all subscription fields, the earliest Start Billing Month offered, your OSS bucket, and a directory such as focus. Select Create.

4. Repeat for Split Details, Cost Details and Bill Details, each with its own directory (for example split-details, cost-details, bill-details). These are optional but recommended: Split Details enables per-bucket and per-domain attribution and cost centers, Cost Details enables the Amortized cost metric, and Bill Details is used for reconciliation.

5. If you use split-type products (OSS, CDN, Internet Shared Bandwidth, snapshots, Cloud Communication), open Expenses and Costs > Split Bill and select Activate Now once. Member accounts activate separately.

   Note

   Alibaba Cloud pushes the backfill for every month since the start month within about an hour, then updates the current month daily by 18:00 (UTC+8). The final file for a month arrives on the 3rd or 4th of the following month.

Create a RAM user with read access

1. Open the RAM console and select Users > Create User. Do not enable console access.

2. Select the user, then Add Permissions, and attach AliyunOSSReadOnlyAccess (and optionally AliyunBSSReadOnlyAccess).

3. Open the user's Credential tab and select Create AccessKey. Copy the AccessKey ID and Secret.

   Caution

   The AccessKey Secret is only shown once. Store it securely before closing the dialog.

Connect your Alibaba Cloud account

1. Sign in to Cloud Intelligence, select Data ingestion and integrations > Integrations from the top navigation mega menu.

2. Search for Alibaba Cloud in the integrations catalog and select Connect + on the integration card.

3. Enter the account UID, the RAM AccessKey pair, the bucket name and region, and the FOCUS directory. Add the Split, Cost and Bill Details directories if you created those subscriptions.

4. Select Test connection, then Save.

   If the test fails or you need further assistance, please open an expert inquiry.

Note

Upon initial connection, DoiT ingests every month already present in the bucket. The import can take a few hours. You'll receive an email when the data is available in Cloud Analytics.

Data refresh

DoiT refreshes your Alibaba Cloud billing data every 6 hours and re-reads the current and previous month so that Alibaba Cloud's month-final files are picked up. Bills for a day are typically available within 30 hours. Current-month data is Alibaba Cloud's estimate and carries the cost_basis: estimated label until the month-final file replaces it.

Cost, Amortized cost and split items

• Cost is the BilledCost of the FOCUS export, as invoiced. A prepaid subscription appears on its purchase day.
• Amortized cost comes from Alibaba Cloud's Cost Details export, which spreads subscription fees across the days of their service period. Alibaba Cloud marks this data as for analysis only, not for reconciliation.
• For split-type products, a FOCUS line is replaced by one row per split item, with the Split item and Cost center labels populated. Totals are preserved.

Troubleshooting

• Create is disabled on the Bill Subscription form even after you selected Authorize: reload the page. The console only re-checks the AliyunConsumeDump2OSSRole grant on load.
• "Not grant." when creating an old-version export (Billing Item Details by billing period or by day): accounts on the new billing version cannot subscribe to the legacy files. Use the new-version exports listed above.
• Test connection fails: confirm the RAM user has AliyunOSSReadOnlyAccess, the bucket name and region match the bucket's overview page, and the directory matches the subscription's OSS Directory exactly, without a leading slash.
• No data after connecting: Alibaba Cloud pushes the first files within about an hour of creating a subscription, and bills lag usage by about a day. A month with no charges arrives as an empty file, which is expected.
• Amortized cost is empty: the Cost Details subscription is optional. Add it in Alibaba Cloud and enter its directory in the integration settings.

Reporting dimensions

Cloud Analytics dimension	Alibaba Cloud value	Example
Provider	Alibaba Cloud	Alibaba Cloud
Billing Account	Paying account UID	5489190251210804
Project/Account ID	Linked (sub) account UID	5489190251210804
Service	Product name	Elastic Compute Service
SKU	Billing item	instance_type, vm_bandwidth
Resource	Instance or resource ID	i-0xi0g7hebz3s0aqriyc3
Region	Region name	US (Virginia)

In addition, the following Alibaba Cloud labels are available: Commodity, Billing item, Charge frequency, Split item, Cost center, Line item type, Row kind and Cost basis.