The platform allows you to setup custom fields (associated to customer profile), and Cloud Account Fields (associated to a specific account, subscription, order or project).
Within a native cloud vendor console, users tag services or assets for cost tracking. Cost allocation tags are used in consumption-based products such as Azure, AWS, GCP, to name a few. ION captures activated tag-level data but does not control the data points created in the vendor's console.
Cloud Vendor Cost Allocation Tags | Custom Fields | Cloud Account Fields |
|---|---|---|
| Set in the cloud vendor console at the asset level. Captured in billing reports in ION | Configured in ION at the Customer profile level | Configure in ION at the Cloud Account, Subscription, Project or order level |
| Attached to cloud resources (assets) | Attached to customers | Attached to Cloud Account, Subscription, Project or order level |
| Defined by the cloud account, subscription users | Defined in the ION management console | Defined in ION management console |
| Viewable and editable by customers | Not viewable or editable by customers | Not viewable or editable by customers |
| Displays in ION billing reports and dashboard filters | Displays in ION Reports | Displays in ION Reports |
ION Cost Management Fields
Cost management fields are metadata that integrate with billing data (reports and dashboard) and may be used with third-party systems. ION allows for two types of cost management fields:
- Customer fields (Custom Fields) – create fields to store customer-specific information used in reports and dashboards
- Cloud account fields – create custom cloud account fields to tag an account, subscription, order or project ID to meta data. You can capture purchase order numbers and other cloud-account related data.
End users are not able to see or update ION cost management fields. This feature is available in the ION management console only.
To begin, you create the field name and label. Once created, you then apply the specific data to the appropriate customer or account/subscription/order or project ID.
Click the links below to view articles for how to use each of the cost management field options:
Cloud Vendor Cost Allocation tags
Tags are metadata elements that you apply to your IaaS resources. They're key-value pairs that help you identify resources based on settings that are relevant to your organization. Tags are user defined through the cloud console (i.e.. AWS or Azure) when the resource is created, users have access to them and can modify them.
Cloud vendor tags are comprised of the key name and an associated value. For example:
Key Name = Environment
Key Value = Production, Dev, or QA
For your convenience, here are a couple of links to the cloud vendor tagging best practices
Note: Different cloud providers might have different names for tags. For instance, in GCP, they're called labels.
View, search, and edit tags
This menu option is specific to AWS. It allows you to change the reference tag name set in the AWS console to something more familiar to you for use in reports generated in ION. This feature doesn't change any naming conventions created and managed in the AWS console for a resource or group.
GO TO COST MANAGEMENT >TAGS
Columns:
- Cloud Provider – The originator of the cloud resource. Example: Amazon Web Services.
- Tag Key Name – The name of the tag, defined by the end user.
- Renamed Tag Key – The new name for the tag, defined by you.
- Active – If yes, the tag appears in SIE dashboards and reports.
To find tags or filter the list, use the search function.
To edit a tag, select the tag and click Edit.
The editable attributes are:
- Renamed Tag Key
- Available in Dashboards and Reports (makes the tag "Active")