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Recommendation

PerfectScale for Commitments analyzes your cloud usage and generates updated purchase recommendations throughout the month.

  • After onboarding, first-time Recommendation data typically appears within 90 minutes on AWS and within a few hours on Google Cloud. Until then, the tab may show empty or loading states.

  • Once data is available, recommendations refresh automatically as usage, portfolio, and pricing signals change.

Required permissions​

  • To view recommendations: PerfectScale Commitments Read Only or PerfectScale Commitments Admin permission.

  • To change policy: PerfectScale Commitments Admin permission.

View recommendations​

The Recommendation tab compares your active commitments to PerfectScale's recommended commitments. Recommendations reflect your inventory, expired commitments, planned purchases, settings, and cloud provider data.

If your account has multiple commitment types enabled, use the tabs at the top of the page to view recommendations for a specific commitment type.

Recommendation tab overview

  • The Auto-updated indicator in the page header shows when the recalculation was last run. Hover over it for the usage, portfolio, and pricing signals behind the update.

  • For AWS Compute, if your account uses Flexsave for Compute, select Include Flexsave to add Flexsave commitments in the chart. Recommended Commitment, laddering, and auto-purchase always exclude Flexsave commitments.

  • For Google Cloud SQL, commitment policies and settings are filtered by region. Use the region selector to view and manage each region independently.

Metric cards​

The Recommendation tab displays two metric cards:

  • Recommended Commitment ($/hour): The target hourly commitment. The sum of your current commitment plus the additional hourly amount that PerfectScale recommends purchasing.

    • A stacked bar breaks down the recommended commitment.

    • If no additional commitment is needed, the card shows Optimized instead of the dollar value.

  • Potential Additional Savings ($/month): Estimated monthly savings from reaching the recommended commitment, based on your commitment policy, term, and prepayment settings.

    • When additional savings are available, the card includes a link to Planned Purchases.

    • If no additional savings are available, the card shows Optimized. The optimized status is evaluated per commitment type.

During preview mode, both cards display a Preview chip and an accent border. Each card shows the committed value struck through alongside the previewed value so you can compare before and after. When the committed and previewed values are the same, the card collapses to a single value. If the preview changes the optimized state, the card shows Optimized in the appropriate slot.

This chart plots eligible usage against your commitment levels.

  • Eligible usage is on-demand spend on commitment-eligible services from your billing data, before commitment discounts.

  • The commitment series uses post-discount $/h.

Recommendation commitment and eligible usage chart

Settings:

  • Duration: Specifies the duration for the view. Options: Hour, Day, Week, and Month.

    The duration option changes the time bucket size and how much historical eligible usage the chart includes. For example, the last 24 hours at hourly granularity, the last 21 days by day, the last 16 weeks by week, or the last 6 months by month.

  • Customize: Specifies the series visibility.

Hover over the info icon next to each legend for pricing details.

  • Hourly Eligible Usage Range ($/h): Highest and lowest hourly usage during the selected period. Valid when Duration is Day, Week, or Month.

  • Hourly Median Eligible Usage ($/h): Median hourly usage during the selected period. Valid when Duration is Day, Week, or Month.

  • Hourly Eligible Usage ($/h): Eligible usage at hourly granularity. Valid when Duration is Hour.

  • Current Commitment: Current active commitment level measured in hourly spend.

  • Recommended Commitment: Recommended commitment level based on usage patterns and your commitment policy. A dashed line matching the Recommended Commitment metric card. Updates when you change the commitment policy or use Preview Mode.

  • Est. Equivalent Recommended Commitment: The estimated shelf-price $/h equivalent of the recommended commitment, based on the eligible usage included in the recommendation.

    Derived from the median hourly eligible usage over the trailing 60 days, multiplied by the estimated average coverage percentage. Because it uses a 60-day median, the line is a constant flat value and does not change when you switch chart granularity. Hidden when there is no eligible usage in the trailing window. Updates with policy changes and Preview Mode.

During preview mode, the chart also displays a Preview chip and an accent border.

Commitment policy​

The Commitment policy dropdown lets you assess how a different commitment policy would affect the recommendation.

  • Each account and service combination has its own policy assignment. When you select an account and service tab, the list shows the policy currently assigned to that scope. Scopes with no explicit assignment default to Balanced.

  • Users with PerfectScale Commitments Admin permission can select the Manage Policies button at the bottom of the list to open the Commitment policies settings page.

Recommendation - Commitment policy

Preview mode​

Selecting a different policy puts the page into Preview Mode.

The metric cards and chart update immediately to reflect the new policy. For Google Cloud SQL, if you switch regions while in preview mode, the preview clears and the page resets to the saved policy for the newly selected region.

Recommendation - Preview mode

Review and confirm changes​

Users with the PerfectScale Commitments Admin permission can select Review Changes to see a side-by-side comparison between current and new policies.

Recommendation tab - Review changes

The confirmation dialog shows:

  • Two side-by-side tables of the Current Policy Purchasing Plan and the New Policy Purchasing Plan.

  • For Cloud SQL, the dialog also shows the selected region, and the current policy column reflects the region-specific saved policy.

  • For AWS, the dialog also shows the prepayment option.

Select Confirm to apply the change.

  • In Requires Approval mode, if the updated purchase amount is higher than the previously approved amount, go to Planned Purchases to approve the higher target.

  • In Autonomous Execution mode, PerfectScale continues purchasing toward the new target within your guardrails without requiring re-approval.

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