Skip to main content

Investigate anomalies

The DoiT Console provides multiple ways to help you understand cost anomalies.

Required Permissions
  • Attributions Manager, Anomalies Viewer, Cloud Analytics

View a cost anomaly

To view a specific cost anomaly:

  1. On the main Cost anomalies screen, locate the anomaly entry of interest.

  2. Select the View button at the rightmost end of the anomaly entry. You'll see a cost anomaly chart and a list of resources that caused the anomaly.

    The cost anomalies page

    The anomaly properties displayed on the Cost anomalies list page are shown above the anomaly chart with the following additional fields:

    • Billing account ID: For Google Cloud it is the Cloud Billing account ID that the usage is associated with. For AWS it is your DoiT customer ID (if you're on a Dedicated payer account) or your CloudHealth account ID (if you're on a Consolidated billing account). For Azure it is the unique identifier of your Azure subscription; you can also find the Subscription ID on the DoiT Console's Assets page.

    • Attribution: The group of resources being monitored. By default, the anomaly detection service monitors three preset attributions: All AWS Resources, All GCP Resources, and All Azure Resources. You can also Monitor cost anomalies on other specific subsets of your overall cloud spend.

Cost anomaly charts

A cost anomaly chart contains the following information:

  • Anomaly detected: When a spike was detected as a cost anomaly.

  • Anomaly inactive: When the anomaly became inactive. See Dynamic updates for more information.

  • Cost at time of detection: Value derived from the available cost data when an anomaly was detected. This field applies only to the point of Anomaly detected.

  • Cost since time of detection: Value derived from the cost data received after an anomaly was detected. The anomaly detection system keeps updating this field until the anomaly becomes Inactive.

  • Cost adjustment since time of detection: Negative value derived from the cost data received since an anomaly was detected.

  • Normal range: It's depicted as a shaded area on an anomaly chart. The example below shows one point that exceeds the upper bound of the normal range while also meeting the other criteria. It is reported as an anomaly.

  • Cost of anomaly: The difference between the actual total cost and the maximum cost in the normal range calculated at that moment. Moving your mouse over the bar that indicates Anomaly detected will show the relevant numbers.

    The cost anomalies page

Contributory resources

A list of Resources contributing to this anomaly is displayed below the cost anomaly chart. Combining with Anomaly details, this list helps you better understand what caused the anomaly and allows you to make informed decisions swiftly.

Check anomaly details

Note

Anomaly details are available only for anomalies detected after May 25, 2023.

To gain a quick understanding of an anomaly, select Anomaly details in the upper-right corner of the cost anomaly chart.

The anomaly details consist of three parts:

  • Summary: a brief on the anomaly, including the rationale and the main contributors to the spike

  • SKU explanation: a breakdown of top SKUs that drove the cost increase

  • Optimization: a list of suggestions on how you can optimize the costs associated with the specific service

    The anomaly details sidebar

Open in reports

To decide whether a detected anomaly is really an issue in the context of your business, select Open in Report in the upper-right corner of the cost anomaly chart. It will open a cloud analytics report that groups costs by SKUs and uses anomaly properties (billing account, scope, service, attribution) as filters.

Tip

Cloud analytics reports always use the latest usage and cost data available, while the data in cost anomaly charts is only updated until the anomaly becomes Inactive.

See also

Investigative report of a cost anomaly