Cost Anomaly Detection

Architecture

Combine budgets with anomaly detection for comprehensive cost monitoring:

  • AWS Budgets for threshold-based alerts
  • AWS Cost Anomaly Detection for ML-based detection
  • SNS Topics for unified notification delivery
  • Lambda Functions for automated response actions

When to Use

This pattern is ideal when you need:

  • Protection against runaway costs
  • Detection of compromised credentials
  • Identification of misconfigured resources
  • Visibility into unexpected usage patterns
  • Compliance with financial controls

Detection Strategies

StrategyDescription
Threshold alertsFixed percentage triggers (50%, 75%, 100%)
Forecasted spendAlerts based on projected end-of-period costs
Anomaly detectionML-based detection of unusual patterns
Rate of changeAlerts when daily spend increases rapidly

Implementation Strategy

  1. Create baseline budgets for normal spending
  2. Enable AWS Cost Anomaly Detection
  3. Configure SNS for unified alert delivery
  4. Set up Lambda for automated investigation
  5. Create runbooks for common anomaly types

Automated Responses

  • Notify on-call teams via PagerDuty
  • Post alerts to Slack/Teams channels
  • Tag resources for investigation
  • Generate incident tickets
  • Temporarily restrict provisioning