Sep 30, 2022
11:40 AM
1 Kudo
We've released two additional API routes for configuring rule-based dimensions: allowing edits to a single rule-based dimension (RBD), or even a single rules list.
Previously, with only one API route to read/write the entire configuration covering all RBDs, any change involved uploading the entire configuration of every RBD in the org.
With these new API routes, it will be easier to write a policy that can update a single RBD, or even just one month's rule list for an RBD. It no longer has to touch the config of any other RBD.
For instance, a policy might want to populate an RBD to simulate an account tag. The policy would scrape a tag's value on all the accounts across multiple vendors, and use that mapping to generate a list of rules to populate one RBD. The policy could use the new API to write this rules list for the current month, without having to touch any other month or be concerned with any other RBD.
The API docs are updated here:
https://reference.rightscale.com/bill_analysis/
Here's a snippet from the "Rule-Based Dimensions API" section:
API The main API route, /orgs/{org}/settings/rule_based_dimensions , lets you read/write the entire rule-based dimensions JSON configuration for the org. There are also two other API routes that let you work with a subset of the config – a single rule-based dimension, or a single rules list: /orgs/{org}/settings/rule_based_dimensions/{id} /orgs/{org}/settings/rule_based_dimensions/{id}/rules/{effective_at}
And the two new routes have documentation for all their actions.
Actions on a single RBD:
Actions on a single rules list:
... View more
Sep 29, 2022
10:59 AM
David
We do plan to bring the Potential Savings back into the Billing Centers in the future. In the meantime, you can filter your Total Potential Savings by Billing Center in the Optimization Page.
... View more
Sep 28, 2022
03:20 PM
Understanding your spend recommendations is paramount to optimizing your cloud spend and usage. With the latest update to the Flexera One Cost Optimization Total Potential Savings you can now see where the biggest savings opportunities are on a single page. Additionally, more filtering capabilities are available to quickly find the recommendations to optimize your cloud cost and usage.
The following changes have been made to the Cloud Cost Optimization Cloud Overview page
The page has been renamed to Optimization
Recommendations are now categorized by a policy set. A policy set is a way Flexera categorizes similar policies across multiple providers. For example, the Unused Volumes policy set is a collection of all the Unused Volumes for AWS, Azure, Google, and others.
A new chart to show Rate Reduction recommendations that are by cloud and by policy set: Reserved Instance and Savings Plan
A new Chart to show Usage Reduction recommendations by cloud and policy set: Unused Volumes, Unused Instances, Unused Database Services, Unused IP Addresses, Old Snapshots
Read more about spend recommendations in the Total Potential Savings section of the Flexera One Help.
... View more
Labels
Sep 13, 2022
04:44 PM
@yesthatallen The Stranded Servers policy will terminate any of the servers that were found stranded. This only applies to servers created within the Flexera Cloud Management module.
Here is the description from the README file
## What it does
This policy checks all Servers in Cloud Management and reports on any that have been stranded during the boot process. It provides the option to terminate any stranded servers after approval.
... View more
Sep 13, 2022
04:37 PM
Flexera would like to announce an update to the Flexera One Automation pages. The following pages have been updated with a new look and experience.
Automation Catalog
Automation Applied Polices
Automation Incidents
Automation Templates
As well as a new look and feel following Flexera One modern UX patterns, the page has moved under a modern UI framework (React) to ensure security compliance is adhered to. With the move to React, we are leveraging modern UI framework benefits:
Ensuring security compliance with Web standards and the latest browsers
Improved UX consistency
Quality coverage increased
Improved validation and user success/error messaging to support customer interactions
Big step forward in further integrating it as part of Flexera One alongside other capabilities
Moving the codebase into the modern integration of Flexera
There are also plans to update the Automation Credentials in the Fall of 2022. We expect to be complete with the Automation Update by Dec 31st 2022.
... View more
Labels
Sep 01, 2022
07:17 PM
1 Kudo
Flexera has released an update to the Automation and Cloud Cost Optimization solution areas to allow customers to create custom recommendations that populate with Total Potential Savings and recommendation details.
For example, a user may want to customize an existing Flexera policy or create a new policy from scratch to meet their business needs. The user can use the new policy template attributes to inform the recommendation engine to ingest their new policy incident detail. The recommendation engine will show the new policy's total potential savings and recommendation details.
Read more about this update in the Flexera Automation Documentation
... View more
Sep 01, 2022
04:21 PM
The following Flexera Cloud Management Policies have been depreciated and are no longer being updated. The policies can still be used in the Flexera NAM environment. They can also be modified as custom versions managed by customers.
For a complete list of the Flexera Policies or to access the policy templates for the deprecated policies please visit our GitHub repository.
List of deprecated Policies
Compliance
Disallowed Cloud Images
Untagged Resources
Unapproved Instance Types
Cost
Downsize Instances
Running Instance Count Anomaly
Inefficient Instance Utilization using RightLink
Inefficient Instance Utilization using RightLink Add Tags
Schedule Instances
Superseded Instance Remediation
Terminate Instances with End Date
Discover Old Snapshots
Unattached Volumes
Operational
AWS Cloud Credentials Rotation
No Recent Snapshots
Stranded Servers
VMWare Instance Tag Sync
Security
Security Group with High Open Ports
Security Groups with ICMP Enabled
Security Group Rules without Description
Security Group Rules with ports open to the world
... View more
- Tags:
- automation
Sep 01, 2022
12:54 PM
In an effort to improve the integration with Flexera One and cloud providers, the below Policies have been enhanced with a new authentication method. The listed Policies now require a new Flexera oAuth2 Credential for connecting with Flexera Cloud Cost Optimization.
When Applying the Policies you will see a prompt to select the Flexera Automation Credential (see example below). Select the Credential created as defined in the Provider Specific Credentials for Flexera.
Example of Flexera One Credential Selection
This change only impacts the Policies of the Flexera One NAM instance (app.flexera.com). Policies of Flexera One EU instance (app.flexera.eu) already include this enhancement and are not impacted.
AWS Delete Unused Classic Load Balancers
AWS Expiring Reserved Instances
AWS GP3 Upgradeable Volumes
AWS Idle Compute Instances
AWS Old Snapshots
AWS Reserved Instances Utilization
AWS Unused IP Addresses
AWS Unused RDS Instance
AWS Unused Volumes
Azure Expiring Reserved Instances
Azure Idle Compute Instances
Azure Old Snapshots
Azure Sync Tags with Optima
Azure Unused IP Addresses
Azure Unused SQL Databases
Azure Unused Volumes
Billing Center Access Report
Billing Center Cost Anomalies
Budget Alerts
Budget Alerts by Cloud Account
Cheaper Regions
Cloud Spend Forecast - Moving Average
Flexera IAM Explicit User Roles
Low Account Usage
Low Service Usage
Monthly Actual v. Budgeted Spend Report
New Service Usage
Reserved Instance Report by Billing Center
Scheduled Report
Superseded Instances
... View more
Aug 04, 2022
04:27 PM
1 Kudo
As we continue to improve our recent Spend Recommendations feature, we have added support for Azure Resource Groups. In this update, Recommendations are assigned to Billing Centers that are allocated to Azure Resource Groups. This allows the Cost Center owner to view Recommendations specific to the business needs to take the necessary action for savings optimization.
For additional information refer to the following topics in the Flexera One Help:
Analyzing Cloud Costs in Billing Centers
Viewing Potential Savings
... View more
Labels
Aug 04, 2022
03:33 PM
1 Kudo
We are pleased to announce that the Cloud Cost Optimization Reserved Instances page now supports all AWS Services which support Reserved Instances. The update allows users to see the AWS Service, as well as other important details such as Utilization, Expiration date, Instance Type, Platform, and more.
List of Services included:
EC2 Compute
RDS
ElasticCache
ElasticSearch
Redshift
For related documentation, refer to Amazon Web Services Reserved Instances in the Flexera One Help.
... View more
Labels
Jun 16, 2022
12:16 PM
1 Kudo
Flexera One administrators can now designate non-administrators to manage the Cloud Billing Centers. There are two new roles now available to allow individuals to manage the Billing Centers. These roles provide management capabilities at the Flexera One Organization level of Billing Centers and individual Billing Centers.
Key features
Manage Billing Center Allocation Rules
Create sub Billing Centers
Manage Billing Center permissions
Manage Billing Centers
Full access to configure Billing Centers and management of user access to Billing Centers. Full read access except to Bill Adjustments and registration of billing data.
Billing Center Admin
Full access to configure and management of individual Billing Centers.
Refernces:
Flexera One User Roles
Analyzing Cloud Costs in Billing Centers Analyzing Cloud Costs in Billing Centers
... View more
Labels
Jun 09, 2022
04:26 PM
1 Kudo
Following our release of the Total Potential Savings in March we are excited to include Google Cloud Platform recommendations. The Total Potential Savings now includes AWS, Azure and Google clouds.
The release includes 5 new recommendations that calculated the total potential savings for Rate and Usage Recommendations and are allocated to your Flexera One Billing Centers.
The new recommendations are published in the Flexera One Automation Catalog and are ready for use now.
Rate Reduction Recommendation
Google Committed Use Discount Recommender
Usage Reduction Recommendations
Google Idle Persistent Disk Recommender
Google Cloud SQL Idle Instance Recommender
Google Idle IP Address Recommender
Google Idle VM Recommender
Documentation: https://docs.flexera.com/flexera/EN/Optima/ViewPotentialSavings.htm
... View more
Jun 06, 2022
05:04 PM
Flexera is pleased to announce that they have released many new Automation policies to provide insights to cloud spend and usage.
Please find the full list of new policies in the Release Notes
... View more
Jun 06, 2022
04:21 PM
We are excited to announce we have released a new feature to identify significant changes in cloud spend. Use the Cost Anomaly Detection feature to track down the anomalous spend and take the necessary action to keep your costs in control.
Key Feature
Multi-Cloud - supports all the cloud data ingested by Flexera
Identify spikes in the upper and lower bounds of spend
Uses machine learning to understand your cloud spend patterns
Documentation: https://docs.flexera.com/flexera/EN/Optima/CostAnomaly.htm
... View more
Labels
Mar 31, 2022
11:19 AM
2 Kudos
Flexera is pleased to announce an enhancement to the Cloud Cost Optimization Recommendations. The changes provide a new view of your organization's Total Potential Savings from recommendations, and the ability to dig into the recommendations and share them with your stakeholders.
The update replaces the existing Billing Center Recommendations with a new page that includes greater customization and depth.
The update includes the following changes
A Cloud Overview page is added to the Cloud menu on the Flexera One navigation
The Cloud Overview page includes the Total Spend and Total Potential Savings from discovered Recommendations.
Ability to drill into and filter the recommendations by billing center, recommendation name, savings, cloud, service, and other attributes.
Recommendations leverage our powerful Automation capability and Policy Templates allowing Flexera to quickly add and customize recommendations
Coverage for AWS and Azure clouds. Google Compute to follow shortly after. Ability to add more clouds in future updates.
Future versions to allow customers to create their own recommendations to contribute to the Total Potential Savings
The Billing Center Recommendations tab is removed
The enhancement includes two categories of recommendations:
Rate Reduction – recommendations to reduce the cloud rate, i.e., Reserved Instances, Committed Used Discounts, and Savings Plans
Usage Reduction – recommendations to reduce cloud usage, i.e., Unused Volumes, Instances and databases, IP Addresses, and Old Snapshots
Please see the documentation for more details.
Below are some examples of the changes described above.
Billing Centers without Recommendations Tab
Cloud Overview Page showing Total Potential Savings for Rate and Usage Reduction
... View more
About
Sr. Product Manager, Cloud
USA
Latest posts by cwilhelm
Subject | Views | Posted |
---|---|---|
273 | Sep 30, 2022 11:40 AM | |
136 | Sep 29, 2022 10:59 AM | |
317 | Sep 28, 2022 03:20 PM | |
253 | Sep 13, 2022 04:44 PM | |
160 | Sep 13, 2022 04:37 PM | |
235 | Sep 01, 2022 07:17 PM | |
435 | Sep 01, 2022 04:21 PM | |
229 | Sep 01, 2022 12:54 PM | |
181 | Aug 04, 2022 04:27 PM | |
153 | Aug 04, 2022 03:33 PM |
Activity Feed
- Got a Kudo for Rule-Based Dimensions: two new API routes for smaller edits. Oct 10, 2022 09:50 AM
- Posted Rule-Based Dimensions: two new API routes for smaller edits on Flexera One Blog. Sep 30, 2022 11:40 AM
- Posted Re: Aggregation of Rate and Usage Reduction Recommendations on Flexera One Blog. Sep 29, 2022 10:59 AM
- Posted Aggregation of Rate and Usage Reduction Recommendations on Flexera One Blog. Sep 28, 2022 03:20 PM
- Posted Re: Deprecation of Cloud Management Policies on Cloud Management Platform Release Blog. Sep 13, 2022 04:44 PM
- Posted A new look and experience for Flexera One Automation on Flexera One Blog. Sep 13, 2022 04:37 PM
- Got a Kudo for Creating custom spend recommendations for additional saving opportunities. Sep 07, 2022 12:30 PM
- Posted Creating custom spend recommendations for additional saving opportunities on Flexera One Blog. Sep 01, 2022 07:17 PM
- Posted Deprecation of Cloud Management Policies on Cloud Management Platform Release Blog. Sep 01, 2022 04:21 PM
- Posted Flexera Automation Policies enhanced with new authentication method - Breaking Change on Flexera One Blog. Sep 01, 2022 12:54 PM
- Got a Kudo for Reserved Instances Now Include all AWS Services. Aug 08, 2022 11:59 PM
- Got a Kudo for Total Potential Savings Support for Azure Resource Groups. Aug 08, 2022 11:58 PM
- Posted Total Potential Savings Support for Azure Resource Groups on Flexera One Blog. Aug 04, 2022 04:27 PM
- Posted Reserved Instances Now Include all AWS Services on Flexera One Blog. Aug 04, 2022 03:33 PM
- Tagged Deprecation of Cloud Management Policies on Cloud Management Platform Release Blog. Jul 25, 2022 12:55 PM
- Got a Kudo for New User Role to Manage Cloud Billing Centers. Jun 28, 2022 04:11 AM
- Posted New User Role to Manage Cloud Billing Centers on Flexera One Blog. Jun 16, 2022 12:16 PM
- Got a Kudo for View Total Potential Savings Now includes Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Jun 09, 2022 08:20 PM
- Posted View Total Potential Savings Now includes Google Cloud Platform (GCP) on Flexera One Blog. Jun 09, 2022 04:26 PM
- Posted New Automation Policies for managing cloud spend and usage on Flexera One Blog. Jun 06, 2022 05:04 PM