FAQ
Why was a spike in my costs not reported as an anomaly?
The anomaly detection system evaluates costs at two levels: SKU level and service level. It doesn't evaluate the combined costs of multiple SKUs across different services.
If a spike in your cloud costs was not detected as an anomaly, it's important to first assess whether the spike was caused by SKUs across services. In addition, the spend must meet a specific set of criteria to qualify as an anomaly.
How does anomaly detection differ from alerts?
Anomaly detection differs from cost alerts in the following aspects:
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Scope: Anomaly detection monitors individual SKUs and services, while the scope of cost alerts is more flexible.
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Condition: The condition to trigger an alert is a single threshold, for example, a 5% increase of weekly cost. In contrast, to be classified as an anomaly, the cost must meet multiple criteria.
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Objectivity: An alert reacts to an objective threshold, while anomaly detection also considers the anticipated spending behavior established by a fitted time series model.
In general, alerts are more "sensitive" or easily triggered than anomaly detection.
How does a cost anomaly alert differ from its report?
Data values
The chart included in a cost anomaly alert provides a snapshot of the billing data as at the time of the detection.
The corresponding report (accessed via the Open in Reports button) contains the most up-to-date data and may differ slightly at the latest time steps.
Data availability
The anomaly detection system uses the freshest billing data available in order to expedite alerts.
The report uses more detailed tables that require additional processing, resulting in a delay in data availability. As a result, billing data that triggered an alert may be temporarily unavailable in the report at the time the alert is sent.