Let’s dive into AWS naming conventions, and be prepared for a challenging journey. For reasons that seemed valid back then, naming conventions can be quite tricky for certain resource types and are not consistent across AWS services.

When you create an EC2 instance, an EBS volume is created. Now, quick quiz: what is the service name for this EBS resource in AWS?

Well, there’s a good chance you might be mistaken, as the answer is “it depends.” If you check the CUR, you’ll see it listed as “Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud,” which is the same for EC2 instances. However, in Cost Explorer, it appears as “EC2-Other” (seriously?).

This is just ONE example; AWS is full of these quirks.

At Tailwarden, we’re here to help you—though it can get quite complicated, so we apologize for that. We decided not to rely on AWS’s naming conventions since they often don’t reflect what the resources are, preventing you from effectively monitoring your infrastructure.

We examined each resource and assigned the correct service name. For example, an EBS resource is called EBS! (daring, right?)

We did this for all AWS services, but this can make it tricky to compare costs in AWS Cost Explorer with what you see in Tailwarden (and don’t get me started on the CUR!).

To assist you, we’ve created a mapping table for clarity, which you’ll find below.

Note: In the Cost Reports page, we adhere to AWS naming conventions. However, in the Inventory and Custom Reports, we use our own naming conventions.

When I first learned there were services with resources and services without resources, I was quite lost. Learning how AWS works is already quite damn tough, I don't need traps like this!

So, what are we referring to? Primarily one service: AWS Data Transfer. I won’t delve deeply into the CUR, as I might lose even more readers, but I genuinely don’t understand why it's a new service instead of just keeping a different charge type. I'm sure AWS has good reasons but it doesn't make things simple! BUT ANYWAY.

The challenge here is that these costs are spread across various AWS services, making it tough to find a comprehensive list (trust me, I tried).

Now, how does Tailwarden handle this? We chose to do things differently. AWS Data Transfer is a specific service that won’t appear in the inventory (since there are no resources), nor will it show in the Custom Reports by default. However, you can create a specific widget to filter these costs. When doing this, you can apply any other filters or groupings, allowing you to dive deep into those specific costs.