Viewing Amazon EBS volume recommendations
AWS Compute Optimizer generates volume type, volume size, IOPS, and throughput recommendations for Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes. Recommendations for your EBS volumes are displayed in the following pages of the AWS Compute Optimizer console:
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The EBS volumes recommendations page lists each of your current volumes, their finding classifications, their current volume type, and their current hourly price. The top recommendation from Compute Optimizer is listed next to each of your volumes, and it includes the recommended volume type, recommended volume size, recommended IOPS, the monthly price of the recommendation, and the price difference between your current volume and the recommendation. Use the recommendations page to compare your current volumes with their top recommendation, which can help you to decide if you should up-size or down-size your volume.
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The EBS volume details page, which you can access from the EBS volume recommendations page, lists up to three optimization recommendations for a specific volume. It lists the specifications for each recommendation, their performance risk, and their monthly prices. The details page also displays utilization metric graphs for the current volume.
The recommendations are refreshed daily. They're generated by analyzing the specifications and utilization metrics of the current volume over a period of the last 14 days. For more information, see Metrics analyzed by AWS Compute Optimizer.
Keep in mind that Compute Optimizer generates recommendations for EBS volumes that meet a specific set of requirements, recommendations could take up to 24 hours to be generated, and sufficient metric data must be accumulated. For more information, see Resource requirements.
Contents
Finding classifications
The Finding column on the EBS volumes recommendations page provides a summary of how each of your volumes performed during the analyzed period.
The following findings classifications apply to EBS volumes.
| Classification | Description |
|---|---|
|
Not optimized |
An EBS volume is considered not optimized when Compute Optimizer has identified a volume type, volume size, or IOPS specification that can provide better performance or cost for your workload. |
|
Optimized |
An EBS volume is considered optimized when Compute Optimizer determines that the volume is correctly provisioned to run your workload, based on the chosen volume type, volume size, and IOPS specification. For optimized resources, Compute Optimizer might sometimes recommend a new generation volume type. |
Estimated monthly savings and savings opportunity
Estimated monthly savings (after discounts)
This column lists the approximate monthly cost savings that you experience by migrating your EBS volumes from the current specifications to the recommended specifications under specific discounts. To receive recommendations with specific discounts, the savings estimation mode preference needs to be activated. For more information, see Savings estimation mode.
Note
If you don't activate the savings estimation mode preference, this column displays the default On-Demand pricing discount information.
Estimated monthly savings (On-Demand)
This column lists the approximate monthly cost savings that you will experience by migrating your EBS volumes from the current specifications to the recommended specifications.
Savings opportunity (%)
This column lists the percentage difference between the price of the current EBS volume specification and the price of the recommended volume specification. If savings estimation mode is activated, Compute Optimizer analyzes specific discounts to generate the savings opportunity percentage. If savings estimation mode isn’t activated, Compute Optimizer only uses On-Demand pricing information. For more information, see Savings estimation mode.
Important
If you enable Cost Optimization Hub in AWS Cost Explorer, Compute Optimizer uses Cost Optimization Hub data, which includes your specific pricing discounts, to generate your recommendations. If Cost Optimization Hub isn't enabled, Compute Optimizer uses Cost Explorer data and On-Demand pricing information to generate your recommendations. For more information, see Enabling Cost Explorer and Cost Optimization Hub in the in the AWS Cost Management User Guide.
Estimated monthly savings calculation
For each recommendation, we calculate the cost to operate a new EBS volume using the recommended volume specifications. Estimated monthly savings are calculated based on the number of running hours for the current volume and the difference in rates between the current volume specifications and the recommended volume specifications. The estimated monthly savings for EBS volumes displayed on the Compute Optimizer dashboard is a sum of the estimated monthly savings for all EBS volumes in the account with a finding classification of Not optimized.
Performance risk
The Performance risk column on the EBS volume details page defines the likelihood of each EBS volume recommendation not meeting the resource needs of your workload. Compute Optimizer calculates an individual performance risk score for each specification of the EBS volume recommendation, including volume type, volume size, baseline IOPS, burst IOPS, baseline throughput, and burst throughput. The performance risk of the EBS volume recommendation is calculated as the maximum performance risk score across the analyzed resource specifications.
The values range from very low, low, medium, high, and very high. A performance risk of very low means that the EBS volume recommendation is predicted to always provide enough capability. The higher the performance risk is, the more likely you should validate whether the recommendation will meet the performance requirements of your workload before migrating your resource. Decide whether to optimize for performance improvement, for cost reduction, or for a combination of these two. For more information, see Requesting modifications to your EBS Volumes in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.
Current performance risk
The Current performance risk column on the EBS volumes recommendations page defines the likelihood of each current EBS volume not meeting the resource needs of its workload. The current performance risk values range from very low, low, medium, and high. A very low performance risk means that the current volume is predicted to always provide enough capability. The higher the performance risk is, the more likely you should consider the recommendation generated by Compute Optimizer.
Note
If Compute Optimizer doesn’t display a risk value for your current Amazon EBS volume, this means that the volume is predicted to provide enough performance capability and is considered to have a very low performance risk.
Utilization graphs
The EBS volume details page displays utilization metric graphs for your current volume. The graphs display data for the analysis period. Compute Optimizer uses the maximum utilization point within each five-minute time interval to generate EBS volume recommendations.
You can change the graphs to display data for the last 24 hours, three days, one week, or two weeks. You can also change the statistic of the graphs between average and maximum.
The following utilization graphs are displayed on the details page:
| Graph name | Description |
|---|---|
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Read operations (per second) |
The completed read operations per second for the current EBS volume. For Xen instances, data is reported only when there is read activity on the volume. |
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Write operations (per second) |
The completed write operations per second to the current EBS volume. For Xen instances, data is reported only when there is write activity on the volume. |
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Read bandwidth (KiB/second) |
The read kibibytes (KiB) per second from the current EBS volume. |
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Write bandwidth (KiB/second) |
The written kibibytes (KiB) per second to the current EBS volume. |
|
Burst balance (percent) |
The percentage of I/O credits remaining in the burst bucket for the current EBS volume. This metric is displayed only for General Purpose SSD ( |
