Overview
The Cost Recommendations feature is the core of Stable's value proposition, identifying opportunities to reduce your AWS spending through intelligent analysis of your resources. This page displays actionable cost-saving recommendations prioritized by difficulty and potential savings, giving you a clear roadmap to optimize your AWS infrastructure costs.
Summary Statistics
The Cost Recommendations page begins with key metrics that provide an at-a-glance overview of your optimization potential:
Annualized Cost: AWS spending over a 12-month period estimation, calculated based on your usage patterns from the last 3 months. This metric provides a forward-looking estimate of your annual AWS expenditure to help with budget planning and cost forecasting. The annualized cost calculation excludes taxes and AWS Marketplace purchases, focusing solely on core AWS service consumption.
Potential Savings: Displays the total estimated cost reduction possible across your AWS environment if all recommendations are implemented.
Realized Savings: This tracks the actual cost reductions achieved after implementing recommendations.
Recommendations by Difficulty
Recommendations are categorized into three difficulty levels to help you prioritize implementation:
Easy: Simple changes that can be implemented quickly with minimal risk or expertise
Medium: More complex changes that might require testing or specific AWS knowledge
Advanced: Significant architectural changes or optimizations that require careful planning and specialized expertise
Commitment: Cost optimization recommendations that involve long-term financial commitments to AWS services. This category includes recommendations for Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, and other commitment-based pricing models that require upfront decisions about future resource usage.
Recommendation Table
The main table displays individual recommendations with detailed information. You can personalize how recommendation data is displayed to match your workflow preferences:
Customize Columns: Add, remove, or rearrange columns in the table to focus on the metrics most relevant to your needs. Click the gear icon in the upper right corner of the table to access column settings.
Sort and Filter: Click on column headers to sort recommendations or use the search bar to filter specific types of recommendations.
Data Export: Export the complete table or selected recommendations to CSV or Excel format for offline analysis or reporting. Use the download icon in the upper right corner of the table to export data.
Resource Status Categories
When viewing recommendations, resources are classified into one of four statuses:
Affected: Resources currently impacted by one or more cost optimization recommendations. These represent active opportunities to reduce your AWS spend.
Resolved: Resources for which optimization recommendations have been successfully implemented, representing completed cost-saving actions that are now benefiting your AWS bill.
Outdated: Resources for which previous recommendations are no longer relevant. This could be due to resources being modified or deleted, or because changing conditions have made the recommendation no longer applicable or beneficial.
Ignored: Resources that users have deliberately marked to exclude from optimization recommendations. This status indicates a conscious decision to maintain current configuration despite potential cost savings.
Selection Criteria
Each recommendation uses specific parameters and conditions to identify resources that qualify for optimization. These selection criteria ensure that recommendations are relevant and appropriate for each resource's usage patterns and requirements.
For certain recommendations, you can modify these selection criteria to adjust the aggressiveness or scope of the optimization suggestions.
Implementation Process
When reviewing recommendations:
Evaluate the difficulty level and potential savings to prioritize your optimization efforts
Review the affected resources to understand the scope of the recommendation
Assess any potential operational impacts before implementation
Implement the recommendation yourself or engage Unicorne's AWS managed services for assistance
Track realized savings to measure the impact of your optimization efforts
Best Practices
Start with Easy recommendations to capture immediate savings with minimal effort
Plan implementation of Medium and Advanced recommendations as part of your regular maintenance cycles
Regularly review new recommendations as Stable continuously monitors your environment
Consider the impact assessment before implementing changes to understand any potential service effects