AWS Instance Usage Tracking?

[Joe Gold]

I currently have (4) AWS EC2 (M4-Large) Instance running with WHM/cPanel. Each instance has with about 500 to 1,000 domains hosted for a total of about 2500 cPanel accounts on them.

I would like to try and track and determine what amount of usage each domain (account) is using on AWS. The main reason for this is to know if I'm charging enough for hosting on some accounts, as well as better estimate hosting fees for similar sites on new project proposals.

I searched through my AWS billing and I don't see any break down of usage by domain in the reports.

I see some functionality in AWS billing dashboard for something called "Cost Allocation Tags" but I'm unsure of whether these can be implemented inside WHM to help track usage on the account/domain level.

Does anyone using AWS and WHM/cPanel know how you can track usage at the domain level?


Thank you,

Joe Gold

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @Joe Gold

What kind of usage are you wanting to see specifically? If you can describe what you're looking for we can better suggest something for you.

Thanks!

 

[Joe Gold]

Hi Lauren,

Basically I want to know how much each account in cpanel/WHM is costing to host each month on AWS. So, looking at the AWS billing dashboard, I believe this includes:

• EC2-Instance usage
• Data Transfer
• S3 Data Storage (daily site backups)

The most important metric that we need cost tracking for is the EC2 Instance usage per account. Data transfer and storage can be roughly figured out by looking at the bandwidth and storage size in WHM.

Thank you very much!

Joe

 

[cPanelLauren]

Data transfer and storage can be roughly figured out by looking at the bandwidth and storage size in WHM.

That's exactly right for these two.


What I'm unsure of is:

• EC2-Instance usage

Is this resources like how much memory/cPU the account is using per day? If so WHM>>Server Status>>Daily Process Log might be useful for you. Otherwise you might want to look at something like CloudLinux's LVE Manager CloudLinux - Main | New template though you'd need to run CloudLinux to utilize it.

Thanks!

 

[Joe Gold]

That's exactly right for these two.


What I'm unsure of is:

• EC2-Instance usage

Is this resources like how much memory/cPU the account is using per day? If so WHM>>Server Status>>Daily Process Log might be useful for you. Otherwise you might want to look at something like CloudLinux's LVE Manager CloudLinux - Main | New template though you'd need to run CloudLinux to utilize it.

Thanks!

As I'm sure you are aware, with EC2 instances you pay by what you use. However, different usage requests have different rates. There are 54 usage types (although I'm not sure how many are actually being used).

In the attached screen shot for AWS billing summary in September you can see a the basic break down for the whole server:

• Total cost
• EC2 Instances
• EC2 other
• Directory Service
• S3

I would like to have that same break down per WHM account.

It seems it can be done with AWS Cost Allocation Tags, but I'm unable to find any documentation on how to add these tags to sites managed through WHM....

Thank you.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hello,

Ultimately the cost tags are something that would need to manage through AWS, this isn't something we'd be able to provide assistance with. We don't have breakdowns like this for cost, what you do want to look at in comparison to this though is resource usage which WHM>>Server Status>>Daily Process Log (or as I mentioned before CloudLinux) should help with, Traffic (to the sites) which statistics processing software like awstats will help with, and disk usage which you should be able to see/manage from WHM>>Account Informaiton>>List Accounts if you have quotas enabled on the server.

 

[Joe Gold]

Hello,

Ultimately the cost tags are something that would need to manage through AWS, this isn't something we'd be able to provide assistance with. We don't have breakdowns like this for cost, what you do want to look at in comparison to this though is resource usage which WHM>>Server Status>>Daily Process Log (or as I mentioned before CloudLinux) should help with, Traffic (to the sites) which statistics processing software like awstats will help with, and disk usage which you should be able to see/manage from WHM>>Account Informaiton>>List Accounts if you have quotas enabled on the server.

Setting up the AWS Cost Allocation Tags in AWS is not the issue. We can create as many tags as we want (example new cost allocation tag in AWS: "domain123.com - Webserver Usage") . The issue is how do you add the cost allocation tags to Apache server managed through WHM so that the tag fires and AWS records the tag each time there is call for what the tag is tracking?

Thank you

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @Joe Gold

I do understand but again, this is something you'll need to manage through AWS this isn't something that we can provide advice/assistance with. AWS needs to let you know how to manage these. This is something that is specific to their platform.


Thanks!

 

[Joe Gold]

Unfortunately, I've explained this to AWS technical and billing support four times and they keep responding telling me how to create the tags, but insist that we need to add the products tags to Apache (essentially turning it back around on us). I've explained that there is no documentation available on how to do this, but they keep sending back preset responses with links to the Cost Allocation Tags docs which has nothing in there about how to implement them...

I'm stuck in a loop and no answers.... More than likely AWS doesn't want to make it easy to track costs per site because people might migrate off if they saw how much more AWS costs. For us, AWS capability and reliability are worth the extra cost so we just want to make sure we are charging enough for some of our high traffic/high usage clients like e-commerce stores...

If you or anyone else figures out a away to add these tags to apache/whm please be sure to let me know.

Thank you!

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @Joe Gold


The only other advice I'd have would be to ask a qualified system administrator for help, if it's a customization you need to make to apache. If you don't have one you might find one here: System Administration Services | cPanel Forums