In the third step, you can set up alerts. These alerts can be used to notify you if you are getting close to your budget maximum. Alerts can be either mailed to individuals, sent via Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service, which can be used as a text-messaging service), or via Chatbot (Amazon Chime or Slack).
A fourth option step is to attach an action to an alert. For example, you could create an action that would automatically stop a specific EC2 instance.
You also have the option of setting up a billing alarm, but for this to be active, you first need to enable Billing Alerts. This is done by going to the Billing service, selecting Billing Preferences, and marking the Receive Billing Alerts option, as shown in Figure 14.8.
FIGURE 14.8 Enabling billing alerts
When this feature is enabled, you can create a billing alarm using CloudWatch. You can create an alarm for a specific metric, such as EC2 usage, but you can also create an alarm for Total Estimated Charge.
A managed service is any service that is partly or completely managed by AWS. AWS provides many managed services, including the following:
Amazon RDS: This service is considered a managed service because Amazon sets up the database that you choose (Aurora, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server, or PostgreSQL) and provides a way to automate management tasks, like performing backups of your database, patching the database software, and providing data replication.
AWS Fargate: AWS Fargate is a serverless compute resource that utilizes containers. It is considered a managed service because Amazon takes care of the management of software patching, securing the container, and scaling.
EFS: The Amazon Elastic File System is a storage location where you can place files. It is considered a managed service because it grows automatically in size as needed and you don’t need to manage provisioning, patching, or maintaining EFS.
There are many advantages of managed services that you should consider when deploying resources in the cloud. You also might see several questions on the exam related to these advantages, so be ready for questions related to managed services. Advantages include
Scalability
Data compliance
Minimized downtime
Reliability
Lower costs
Higher security
Answer these questions. The answers follow the last question. If you cannot answer these questions correctly, consider reading this section again until you can.
1. You need to determine how much a department is spending on EC2 instances each month. Which tool will help you solve this problem?
A. Cost allocation tags
B. Trusted Advisor
C. AWS Compute Optimizer
D. AWS Budgets
2. Which of the following is not considered an advantage of managed services?
A. Scalability
B. Minimized downtime
C. Greater control over resources
D. Lower costs
1. Answer: A is correct. With cost allocation tags, you can associate a tag for the department on all of its EC2 instances and then enable cost allocation reports to see the resulting costs each month.
2. Answer: C is correct. Because AWS manages parts of the resource, you don’t gain greater control over the resource but rather have less control. The other answers are all advantages of managed services.
If you want more practice on this chapter’s exam objectives before you move on, remember that you can access all of the Cram Quiz questions on the Pearson Test Prep software online. You can also create a custom exam by objective with the Online Practice Test. Note any objective you struggle with and go to that objective’s material in this chapter.
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