Centralize cost allocation and CUR analysis in the management account with Athena and QuickSight

SAP-C02 By islever Editorial Last updated

Determine cost optimization and visibility strategies. Determine a strategy to improve overall operational excellence. Identify opportunities for cost optimizations.

Short answer

A Activate the BusinessUnit cost allocation tag in the management account, deliver one CUR to S3, then query with Athena and visualize with QuickSight.

Question

A company is running several applications in the AWS Cloud. The applications are specific to separate business units in the company. The company is running the components of the applications in several AWS accounts that are in an organization in AWS Organizations. Every cloud resource in the company’s organization has a tag that is named BusinessUnit. Every tag already has the appropriate value of the business unit name. The company needs to allocate its cloud costs to different business units. The company also needs to visualize the cloud costs for each business unit. Which solution will meet these requirements?
  1. In the organization's management account, create a cost allocation tag that is named BusinessUnit. Also in the management account, create an Amazon S3 bucket and an AWS Cost and Usage Report (AWS CUR). Configure the S3 bucket as the destination for the AWS CUR. From the management account, query the AWS CUR data by using Amazon Athena. Use Amazon QuickSight for visualization. Correct Answer
  2. In each member account, create a cost allocation tag that is named BusinessUnit. In the organization’s management account, create an Amazon S3 bucket and an AWS Cost and Usage Report (AWS CUR). Configure the S3 bucket as the destination for the AWS CUR. Create an Amazon CloudWatch dashboard for visualization.
  3. In the organization's management account, create a cost allocation tag that is named BusinessUnit. In each member account, create an Amazon S3 bucket and an AWS Cost and Usage Report (AWS CUR). Configure each S3 bucket as the destination for its respective AWS CUR. In the management account, create an Amazon CloudWatch dashboard for visualization.
  4. In each member account, create a cost allocation tag that is named BusinessUnit. Also in each member account, create an Amazon S3 bucket and an AWS Cost and Usage Report (AWS CUR). Configure each S3 bucket as the destination for its respective AWS CUR. From the management account, query the AWS CUR data by using Amazon Athena. Use Amazon QuickSight for visualization.

Key Takeaways

Cost allocation tags must be activated in the management account for the organization to include them in consolidated billing, and a single Cost and Usage Report there captures every member account's rows so one Athena query and one QuickSight dashboard serve the whole company.

A company runs applications for separate business units across multiple accounts in an organization, and every cloud resource already carries a BusinessUnit tag with the correct business unit name. The company must allocate cloud costs to business units and visualize the cost for each.

Common mistake: Creating a Cost and Usage Report in every member account. That multiplies the number of report pipelines to manage and then still requires a cross-account aggregation step before anything can be visualised, whereas the management account already receives consolidated organization billing data in one place.

Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

Because every resource already carries the BusinessUnit tag, the remaining work is to make sure the tag participates in cost allocation and that the resulting data is queryable. Activating the BusinessUnit cost allocation tag in the management account applies it across the organization, so the consolidated billing data is broken down by business unit. A single Cost and Usage Report delivered to one S3 bucket in the management account contains every member account's line items, Amazon Athena queries that data in place with standard SQL, and Amazon QuickSight provides the visualization. One report, one query layer, and one dashboard is the least data infrastructure to build and maintain for the requirement.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

B: Activating the cost allocation tag per member account and using a CloudWatch dashboard does not work for cost analysis, because CloudWatch dashboards visualise operational metrics rather than the line-item cost data in a Cost and Usage Report, and a saved report in one account cannot be queried from another. C: Creating a Cost and Usage Report and a bucket in every member account multiplies the pipelines to maintain and still leaves the data fragmented across accounts, so the management account has no consolidated dataset to visualise. D: It has the same per-account fragmentation problem as C, and a CloudWatch dashboard is not a cost reporting tool, so the visualization requirement is not met even though Athena and QuickSight are the right query tools.

Community Comment Notes

The community voted 100 to 0 for A, and the top-voted comment identified the two required components, Athena and QuickSight, with another confirming the cost allocation tag must be set in the management account. A dissenting note pointed out a wording nuance, that the tag is activated rather than created, which is a terminology observation that does not change which option satisfies the requirement.

Official Reference

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cur/latest/userguide/cost-allocation-tags.html

This link opens the official vendor documentation in a new tab.

Community Votes

A
100%

100% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.

Discussion 9 contributions

Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.

From public community threads 9

  1. zapper1234 👍 6
    You need Athena and Quicksight so I say A
  2. kgpoj 👍 2 Answered A
    Create tag in management account Use Athena + QuickSight
  3. AzureDP900 👍 1
    A right The cost allocation tag is attached to all resources in the organization's management account, which allows for easy identification of costs associated with each business unit. The S3 bucket and AWS CUR are created in the management account, which simplifies the process of storing and querying cost data. Amazon Athena can be used from the management account to query the AWS CUR data, allowing for easy visualization and analysis of costs across different business units. Amazon QuickSight is also available in the management account, providing a user-friendly interface for visualizing the cost data.
  4. 0b43291 👍 1 Answered A
    By centralizing the cost allocation tag, AWS CUR, and data analysis in the management account, this solution ensures consistent tagging and cost allocation across the organization. It also provides a single source of truth for cost and usage data, enabling efficient querying and visualization using Athena and QuickSight.
  5. altonh 👍 1 Answered A
    Although I believe the correct answer is A, the statement "create a cost allocation tag" seemed to be incorrect. You need to Activate the tag, not create it.
Show 4 more comments
  1. d7ccbf6 👍 1 Answered A
    You need Athena and Quicksight to visualize CUR
  2. grandcanyon 👍 1 Answered A
    A is the best answer
  3. NoinNothing 👍 1 Answered A
    Answer is "A"
  4. gfhbox0083 👍 1
    A, for sure

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