List of Common Scenarios & Questions
Where are my existing commitments?
All commitments will be shown in the commitment inventory.
Why don't I see all of my reserved instances or savings plans in the commitment inventory?
You may have additional subaccounts that contain commitments that are not connected to Archera. Check the status of your integrations to make sure that you've connected all subaccounts that contain commitments by going to the integrations page.
What is Commitment Utilization?
Commitment utilization is the percentage of time that a commitment is utilized by a resource running in your organization.
For example, if you purchased a t3.small Reserved Instance on AWS but you only had m5.larges running on EC2, your t3.small Reserved Instance would have 0% Utilization. If you had exactly one t3.small instance running for the entire month, your Reserved Instance would have 100% Utilization.
What are the differences between Archera Commitments and regular commitments?
Archera commitments are ones that we guarantee to purchase back from the customer after the lock-in period. A 30-day Guaranteed Reserved Instance could be sold back to Archera after 30 days, while a 1-year Guaranteed Reserved Instance could be sold back after 1 year.
30-day Insured Commitments will have less savings than a standard 1-year cloud commitment, but at 1/12 of the lock in.
1-year Insured Commitments will typically provide more savings than standard 1-year cloud commitments.
What is Instance Size Flexibility?
Check out this help article to learn more about instance size flexibility.
What services are eligible for commitments?
See the Supported Services page for all eligible services across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
How will Archera's Commitments show up on my invoice?
AWS
Archera's Insured Commitments will show up in three parts on your AWS invoice:
The cost of the commitment billed to the account in which the commitment resides.
The savings generated by the commitment shown in the account where the infrastructure that benefitted from the discounted rate resides.
The Archera premiums in the Marketplace section of your management account invoice, shown as "Archera - Subscription". For a more detailed breakdown of your Archera premiums, check out the invoices section of the settings page.
How can Archera provide more savings than AWS Commitments?
Archera normally purchases 3-year, no-upfront Reserved Instances and Savings Plans and guarantees to purchase those back from you after the lock in period. These 3-year commitments have deep savings, so Archera is able to provide more savings on their 1-year Insured Commitments than the standard 1-year cloud commitment.
What does "Commitment Coverage" mean?
Commitment Coverage refers to the overall percentage of potentially "reservable" cloud cost that you have being billed at a discounted rate. Not all cloud costs are "reservable", though. For example, in the image below, we can see the top-billing services in an account:
But which of these services are able to be covered by Reserved Instances and Savings Plans? Only two! But these services typically represent a large amount of spend in a cloud customer's account. EC2 and RDS spend below add up to over 40% of total spend for this account.
If this customer covers all their spend on the two line items above with a mix of Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, they'd be at 100% Commitment Coverage because all spend that could be covered by discounts, is.
Why Does my AWS Cost Explorer look different than Archera's Cost Explorer?
There are a few reasons that this may be the case:
There are additional accounts that are not connected to Archera. If you have multiple management accounts make sure you've connected all of them. If you have additional subaccounts that contain commitments, make sure those are also connected. Verify that your integration is complete by going to the integrations section of the platform.
AWS Cost Explorer defaults to an Unblended view of costs. This is similar to a cash basis of accounting where costs incurred are show on the date that they are incurred. Reserved Instances and Savings Plans are billed on the first of every month for the entirety of the month, so this can often cause confusion. Archera defaults to the Amortized view, similar to the accrual basis of accounting, where costs are spread out over the time that they are used. Since Reserved Instances and Savings Plans are billed on the first of the month but represent usage of a resource across the entire month, those costs are smoothed out over the days that they create savings for the underlying resources.
What is the difference between Unblended and Amortized cost metrics?
AWS Cost Explorer defaults to an Unblended view of costs. This is similar to a cash basis of accounting where costs incurred are show on the date that they are incurred. Reserved Instances and Savings Plans are billed on the first of every month for the entirety of the month, so this can often cause confusion. Archera defaults to the Amortized view, similar to the accrual basis of accounting, where costs are spread out over the time that they are used. Since Reserved Instances and Savings Plans are billed on the first of the month but represent usage of a resource across the entire month, those costs are smoothed out over the days that they create savings for the underlying resources.
You can view the AWS "cheat sheet" for cost metrics here.
How can I create a Commitment Plan by selecting specific infrastructure?
Navigate to the Commitment Planner dashboard and select "Create Custom Plan". Then select Infrastructure Plan. This will allow you to filter your infrastructure and select only the infrastructure you want to be factored into a commitment plan.
Where can I find the cost and savings of my commitments?
In the Savings Breakdown dashboard or the Invoices tab of your settings page.
Where can I manage SSO?
In the SSO tab of the settings page.
Where can I manage my users?
In the Users tab of the settings page.
Where can I view reports that show where the savings from my commitments are being applied?
In the Invoices tab of the settings page. Select an invoice and then scroll to the bottom of that page to find custom reports, including the Commitment Accounts Showback Report.
Last updated
Was this helpful?