📖 What is AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR)?
AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) is the most comprehensive set of AWS cost and usage data available. It delivers detailed CSV or Parquet files to an S3 bucket, allowing for granular analysis of spending at the hourly or daily level.
"If a question asks for the 'most detailed' cost data available, CUR is the correct answer, not Cost Explorer."
📚 Certification: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02)
🔑 What are the Key Concepts of AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR)?
- ▸ Provides the highest level of granularity available, offering detailed cost and usage data at either an hourly or daily interval for precise analysis.
- ▸ Delivers reports directly to an Amazon S3 bucket, enabling organizations to store cost data permanently and integrate it with other AWS services.
- ▸ Supports multiple file formats, including CSV and Parquet, with Parquet being optimized for faster and cheaper querying using tools like Amazon Athena.
- ▸ Serves as the primary data source for advanced cost analysis that requires more detail than what is available in the Cost Explorer tool.
🎯 How does AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) appear on the CLF-C02 Exam?
You may be asked to identify the correct tool when a company requires the most comprehensive and granular cost data available to perform a deep-dive internal audit of their monthly spending.
A scenario might describe a need to analyze spending patterns using SQL queries; you should identify CUR as the data source and Amazon Athena as the tool to query the S3 bucket.
Expect questions where you must distinguish between Cost Explorer, which is used for visual trends and forecasting, and CUR, which provides raw, detailed data exported to an S3 bucket.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Why would I use CUR instead of AWS Cost Explorer?
Use Cost Explorer for quick visualizations and trend analysis. Use CUR when you need the most granular data possible or need to export raw data to S3 for external analysis.
How is the data in a Cost and Usage Report typically analyzed?
Since CUR files are stored in S3, they are most commonly analyzed using Amazon Athena, which allows you to run standard SQL queries directly against the reports without moving the data.