Implementing a tagging strategy for detailed cost and usage data - AWS Prescriptive Guidance
Overview

Implementing a tagging strategy for detailed cost and usage data

Leonardo Matsumota, Maisa Coelho, Edgar Costa Filho, Julio Bando, and Julio Paez, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

October 2022

This guide will cover how you can manage company cost reports, according to your operational model. An example is extracting cloud costs by application, business unit, cost center, environment, project, product, or team name.

Overview

To gain more granular information about cost and billing from Amazon Web Services (AWS), an accurate and comprehensive program for cost allocation and tagging is essential.

The account structure should accurately reflect how AWS services are used in the organization. This is the first step for cost allocation. The tagging process includes the following steps, which will be explained in more detail in the following sections:

  1. Define a tagging dictionary.

  2. Publish the tagging dictionary.

  3. Define the rules for applying the tags.

  4. Apply the tags by using Tag Editor, AWS CloudFormation, or cost allocation tags.

  5. Measure, enforce, and evolve.

And the tagging enforcement can be proactive or reactive. It will be shown using tools such as AWS service control policies (SCPs) and AWS tag policies.