Posted On: Jul 23, 2019

Starting today, you can access custom-generated Amazon EC2 resource optimization recommendations in AWS Cost Explorer. These recommendations identify idle and underutilized instances across your accounts and regions. To generate these recommendations, AWS analyzes your historical EC2 resource usage, your Amazon CloudWatch metrics, and your existing reservation footprint to identify opportunities for cost savings (e.g., by terminating idle instances or downsizing active instances to lower-cost options). For example, if your m5.2xlarge has a maximum utilization of 20% over the last 14 days, AWS may recommended downsizing that instance to m5.xlarge or m5.large and show you how much you can save based on your usage and your applicable m5 family reservations.

To get started, just click on the Recommendations summary link on the AWS Cost Explorer sidebar to view your resource- and reservation-related recommendations. From the Resource Optimization page, you can dive deeper into your individual resource recommendations, download them in CSV form, and take action accordingly.

To learn more about getting started with Amazon EC2 resource optimization recommendations, please visit this blog post or the Optimizing your Costs with Rightsizing Recommendations user guide.