Alibaba Billing Overview - Current Month Test

The goal of any Alibaba cloud account holder would be to minimize his/her cloud spend. The first step to achieving that is for them to review their cloud spend on a monthly basis. This is where the Alibaba Billing Overview - Current Month test helps. Administrators can use this test to determine the total cloud spend (pretax) of the monitored cloud account during the current month. By running this test every month and comparing its results with that of the previous months, administrators can understand if the cloud spend is increasing steadily, and if so, proceed to investigate the reasons for the rise. To help with this investigation, the detailed diagnostics also point you to the precise products, regions, instances, and services with the highest pre-tax cost.

Target of the test : An Alibaba Cloud Account

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the monitored cloud account

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters	Description
Test period	How often should the test be executed
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Alibaba Access Key and Alibaba Secret Key	This test makes REST API requests to the Alibaba cloud to pull the metrics. For this purpose, the test needs to be configured with an AccessKey pair. An AccessKey pair is typically used to call an operation of an Alibaba Cloud service. It is also used to initiate an API request or use a cloud service SDK to manager cloud resources. An AccessKey pair is characterized by an AccessKey ID and an AccessKey Secret. The AccessKey ID is used to identify a user/cloud account. The AccessKey Secret is used to verify a user/cloud account. The first step to configuring the eG agent with an AccessKey pair is to create an AccessKey pair for the target cloud acount. To achieve this, follow the steps below: Log on to the RAM console by using an Alibaba Cloud account. In the left-side navigation pane, click Users under Identities. On the Users page, click the username of the RAM user for which you want to create an AccessKey pair in the User Logon Name/Display Name column. On the page that appears, click Create AccessKey in the User AccessKeys section. Note: You must enter a verification code if you create an AccessKey pair for the first time. Click Close. Note: The AccessKey secret is displayed only when you create an AccessKey pair. If the AccessKey pair is leaked or lost, you must create a new one. You can create a maximum of two AccessKey pairs. Make note of the AccessKey ID and AccessKey secret, once they are displayed. Then, configure the Alibaba Access Key parameter of the test with the AccessKey ID, and the Alibaba Secret Key parameter with the AccessKey Secret you made note of. If you failed to make note of the AccessKey ID and AccessKey Secret at the time of creating the AccessKey pair, then you can obtain the same at a later point in time. Similarly, if an AccessKey pair pre-exists for the target cloud account, then you do not have to create another one. Instead, you can obtain the AccessKey ID and AccessKey Secret of the existing AccessKey pair and configure the eG agent with the same. For this, follow the steps below: Use an Alibaba Cloud account to log on to the Alibaba Cloud Management console. Move the pointer over the profile picture in the upper-right corner, and click AccessKey. In the Security Tips message that appears, click Continue to manage AccessKey. AccessKey ID and AccessKey Secret are displayed. Make note of the displayed ID and secret. Then, configure the Alibaba Access Key parameter of the test with the AccessKey ID, and the Alibaba Secret Key parameter with the AccessKey Secret you made note of.
Detailed Diagnosis	To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Total spending cost	Indicates the total cloud spend of the target cloud account for the current month.	USD	You can track changes to this measure over time to understand whether/not the cloud spend for the target cloud account is increasing every month. In the event that this measure registers an abnormally high value for a month, you can use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know on which product the maximum amount was spent.
Payment for this month	Indicates the total amount paid by this cloud account holder for their usage during the current month.	USD	In the event that this measure registers an abnormally high value for a month, you can use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to compare the payments made across products and identify that product for which the maximum amount was paid.
Total regions	Indicates the total number of regions in the monitored cloud account.	Number	If the Total spending cost measure reports an abnormally high value for any particular month, then use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to compare the pre-tax cost across regions and identify the exact region that contributed to the cost escalation that month. .
Total instances	Indicates the total number of instances in the monitored cloud account.	Number	If the Total spending cost measure reports an abnormally high value for any particular month, then use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to compare the pre-tax cost across instances and identify the exact instance that contributed to the cost escalation that month.
Total services	Indicates the total number of services the target cloud account subscribes to.	Number	If the Total spending cost measure reports an abnormally high value for any particular month, then use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to compare the pre-tax cost across services and identify the exact service that contributed to the cost escalation that month.