Common Bill Format (CBF)
CloudZero has developed a standard data model to ingest cost data from any source, called the Common Bill Format (CBF).
The CBF is modeled after the AWS CUR format, but is simpler and more generic. This allows the CBF to be used by many different cloud providers.
If you use an AnyCost Bucket Adaptor, write the CBF to a gzipped CSV file and upload a manifest.json
with it. See Configuring AnyCost Bucket File Drops.
If you use an AnyCost Stream Adaptor, send the CBF to the CloudZero AnyCost API in a JSON request body. See Sending AnyCost Stream Data to CloudZero.
Data file columns
datetime
values should be ISO-formatted strings in the UTC timezone. Excel often auto-converts ISO-formatted dates to a human-readable format. Ensure dates are saved correctly in your CSV file.
Category | Column linked to description | Type | CZ Dimension or Cost Type | Required |
---|---|---|---|---|
Line Item | string | |||
Line Item | string | LineItemType | ||
Line Item | string | Description | ||
Time | datetime | ✅ | ||
Time | datetime | |||
Resource | string | Resource | ✅* | |
Resource | string | Service | ||
Resource | string | Account | ||
Resource | string | Region | ||
Resource | string | UsageFamily | ||
Resource | string | Tag: | ||
Action | string | Operation | ||
Action | string | UsageType | ||
Action | Deprecated; use resource/region. | string | Region | |
Action | Deprecated; use resource/account. | string | Account | |
Usage | number | |||
Usage | string | |||
Cost | number | Billed Cost | ✅ | |
Cost | number | Discounted Cost | ||
Cost | number | Amortized Cost | ||
Cost | number | Discounted Amortized Cost | ||
Cost | number | On-demand Cost | ||
Bill | string | InvoiceId | ||
Kubernetes | string | Kubernetes Cluster | ||
Kubernetes | string | Kubernetes Namespace | ||
Kubernetes | string | Kubernetes Deployment | ||
Kubernetes | string | Kubernetes Labels |
Note: resource/id
is required only when a resource/tag:<key>
value is included for the charge.
Line Item columns
lineitem/id
lineitem/id
Uniquely identifies this specific line item in this specific bill.
lineitem/type
lineitem/type
Broad category of this line item: Usage, Tax, Discount, and so on. Values have special meaning (see below). If not provided, assumed to be Usage.
The lineitem/type
column defines how each line items should be interpreted.
The following values are supported:
Line Item Type | Description |
---|---|
Usage | The most common type and the default. The line item represents a charge for the use of some cloud resource. Real Cost includes only Usage line items and uses the first available cost type provided from: amortized_cost, discounted_cost, or cost |
Tax | This line item represents any tax charges. Columns in the time, resource, and action categories should only be populated if the tax is associated with applicable Usage changes. Otherwise these columns should be left blank. |
Support | Charges for support or other human services. Columns in the time category should specify the start and end of the support contract. |
Purchase | Charge for a one-time purchase or non-usage based subscription; for example, software bought from the AWS Marketplace. The time category columns should represent the span of time over which the purchase applies (for subscriptions with renewal) or the time of the purchase (for one-time charges). |
CommittedUsePurchase | Charges for a committed use (for example, RI, savings plan) purchase. This is a one-time, upfront fee for a committed use subscription. Committed use includes any instrument for which payment is made to receive a reduced rate on future usage. This may include one-time upfront purchases or recurring monthly charges. The time category columns should represent the span of time over which the charge applies (for example, one month for monthly recurring charges.) The amortized_cost cost column of this line item should always be zero (if used). |
CommittedUseVacancy | The unused portion of a committed use subscription. |
CommittedUseRecurringFee | Recurring, typically monthly, fee for a committed use subscription. |
Discount | A negative value cost associated with some Usage line item. Columns in the time, resource, and action categories of this line item should match those of the applicable Usage line item and the cost should be negative. The discounted_cost for this line item should be zero if this discount is fully accounted for in the discounted_cost of other Usage line items. (Note: you must still include discounted_cost if it should be zero) |
Credit | A negative value cost not associated with any specific Usage line items. May represent an adjustment due to an error, rounding, refund, and so on. |
Fee | A positive value charge for which no other line item type applies. |
Adjustment | An alteration made to the bill to correct for some error or rounding issue. |
lineitem/description
lineitem/description
An optional description specifying additional information about this line item.
Time columns
time/usage_start
time/usage_start
The hour during which the charged usage applies. This value should be aligned to the start of the hour and will be treated as such. Note, the current version of the Common Billing Format does not use usage_end
date.
time/usage_end
time/usage_end
The end of a timespan to which the charged usage applies. Note that although this may be specified, all changes are treated as occurring in a single hour at usage_start
. Future updates to the ingest process may take advantage of the usage_end
value.
Resource columns
resource/id
resource/id
Uniquely identifies the object for which this charge applies. This column is required if any resource/tag:<key>
columns are included.
- The
resource/id
is the unique identification of the resource for which the charge applies. - The following special characters
: /
have special meaning and should be used carefully- A
resource/id
containing one of the above characters will be split and the second element will be taken as theresource/id
(for example, aresource/id
ofabc
will becomeb
)
- A
- When
resource/id
is specified, you may also provideresource/tag:<key>
columns to categorize the resource by<key>
, which may be a purpose, owner, environment, or other criteria.- When including
resource/tag:<key>
data with a charge, theresource/id
column is required. - Only one
resource/tag:<key>
column<value>
will be associated with each uniqueresource/id
value. For more information, see the Resource Tags section below.
- When including
resource/service
resource/service
The category to which this resource belongs. Generally represents different kinds of services provided by the Cloud Provider for which the customer is charged.
resource/account
resource/account
The account or project to which this resource belongs (if applicable).
resource/region
resource/region
The region to which this resource belongs (if applicable).
resource/usage_family
resource/usage_family
Commonly a subdivision of resource/service
resource/tag:<key>
resource/tag:<key>
Custom attributes associated with the resource. The <key>
is case sensitive, and can consist of letters, numbers, and the following special characters _ . : / = + - @.
. Using this column also requires resource/id
to be populated.
resource/tag:<key>
columns allow you to categorize resources by purpose, owner, environment, or any other criteria.- The
<key>
is case sensitive, and can consist of letters, numbers, and the following special characters_ . : / = + - @.
.- No spaces, tabs or returns are allowed.
- For example,
resource/tag:team
orresource/tag:Product-Type
are valid tag keys, whileresource/tag:Team Name
andresource/tag:Product&Dev
are not.
resource/tag:<key>
will appear as Tag dimensions in the CloudZero platform, and can be used to filter or aggregate the cost of the tagged resources.- You may include as many unique
resource/tag:<key>
columns as you need. - Only one
<value>
will be associated with aresource/tag:<key>
column for each uniqueresource/id
.- If multiple values are supplied for the same ID, the value with the latest
time/usage_start
will be used. - If all instances for a given key have identical
time/usage_start
dates, then one is arbitrarily selected.
- If multiple values are supplied for the same ID, the value with the latest
- The latest
<value>
of a givenresource/tag:<key>
for eachresource/id
will be retroactively applied to all data in the CloudZero system with the sameresource/id
.
resource/id
and resource/tag
usage example
resource/id
and resource/tag
usage exampleB Large, Inc. is using the CloudZero platform to monitor their cloud costs, and needs to easily identify their resources by the teams that own them. To assist with this, B Large creates a Resource Tag called resource/tag:team
, and populates it with the names of the various teams that own the AWS resources in question.
Team Alpha owns an AWS Lambda function with ther esource/id
of making-great-calculations
. Since these resources have been tagged as owned by Team Alpha using the resource/tag:team
key with the value of Alpha
, whenever anyone logs into CloudZero, they can easily use the team``Tag
Dimension to view what Alpha's Lambda is costing B Large, and monitor trends over time.
Recently, B Large promoted more personalized team names, and Team Alpha voted to name themselves Team Batman. With this change, the resource/tag:team
value in AWS is updated to reflect their new name, and CloudZero receives a new data drop that associates a new resource/tag:team
value of Batman
with the AWS Lambda function resource/id
of making-great-calculations
.
The CloudZero platform receives this updated tag information, and because only one value per resource/tag:team
can be associated with a single resource/id
of making-great-calculations
, the platform retroactively applies this new tag to all historical data in the system for the resource/id
of making-great-calculations
.
Now when anyone at B Large logs into CloudZero, they can still see what Team Batman owns, and because the tag change was retroactively applied to all historical data, the monitoring of trends over time for the making-great-calculations
Lambda sees no interruption, and reports continue to accurately reflect totals and trends, including those that were ingested prior to Team Batman's name change.
Action columns
action/operation
action/operation
The thing that was done to the resource for which you are being charged.
action/usage_type
action/usage_type
Commonly a subdivision of action/operation.
action/region
action/region
Deprecated; use resource/region
. The region in which the operation was performed. May not match the resource/region
for cross-region operations.
action/account
action/account
Deprecated; use resource/account
. The account in which the operation was performed. May not match the resource/account
for cross-region operations.
Usage columns
usage/amount
usage/amount
A numeric value describing an amount consumed or used, for example, GB stored or transferred, seconds executed, credits consumed.
usage/units
usage/units
A description of the units used for usage/amount
.
Cost columns
There are five cost category columns cost
, discounted_cost
, amortized_cost
, discounted_amortized_cost
, and on_demand_cost
. Only cost
is required, but the others may be used to help smooth out charges not directly associated with the use of cloud services.
cost/cost
cost/cost
The cost associated with this line item. May be negative for line items which represent discounts or credits. Sometimes referred to as unblended cost, billed cost, or invoiced cost.
cost/discounted_cost
cost/discounted_cost
The net cost associated with this line item after any discounts, credits, or private pricing are applied. Sometimes referred to as net cost or net unblended cost.
cost/amortized_cost
cost/amortized_cost
The effective cost associated with this line item after any committed use purchases, for example, AWS RIs or Savings Plans, GCP CUDs, and so on, are amortized over all the Usage
line items to which they apply.
cost/discounted_amortized_cost
cost/discounted_amortized_cost
The net effective cost associated with this line item after any discounts, credits, or private pricing are applied. It also includes any committed use purchases, for example, AWS RIs or Savings Plans, GCP CUDs, and so on, amortized over all the Usage
line items to which they apply. Sometimes referred to as net amortized cost, net effective cost, or fully-loaded cost.
cost/on_demand_cost
cost/on_demand_cost
The cost of this line item if no mechanism for reducing costs had been applied. In other words, it is the cost as if there were no discounts, applicable committed use purchases, private pricing, and so on. This is often useful for determining one's effective savings rate.
Precedence for cost columns
To ensure all cost columns are fully populated and may be used in the platform, blank values will fall back and use a different cost column. For example, if discounted_amortized_cost
is left blank, discounted_cost
will be used instead. The assumption is that no line items required amortization, that is, there are no committed use purchases, and thus the discounted cost could be used instead. Only blank or empty values trigger this behavior; if the value is set to 0
, it will be used as is. The complete set of fallback logic is:
discounted_amortized_cost
→amortized_cost
→discounted_cost
→cost
amortized_cost
→cost
discounted_cost
→cost
on_demand_cost
→cost
The total value across all line items for each of cost
, discounted_cost
, amortized_cost
, and discounted_amortized_cost
should be the same. Each represents a redistribution of charges (discounts or purchases or both), not the inclusion or exclusion of charges. This equivalence is not enforced by the billing ingest system, but may be in the future.
How cost types are defined
CloudZero cost types are defined in terms of the lineitem/type
and different cost
category columns.
- Real Cost: Only
Usage
line item types are included. Thediscounted_amortized_cost
column is used, if present, with fallback logic to the othercost
values if it is not. - Discounted Amortized Cost - All line item types are included. The
discounted_amortized_cost
column is used, if present, with fallback logic to the other cost categories if it is not. - Amortized Cost - All line item types are included. The
amortized_cost
column is used, if present, with fallback tocost
if not. - Discounted Cost - All line item types are included. The
discounted_cost
column is used, if present, with fallback tocost
if not. - On-Demand Cost - All line item types are included. The
on_demand_cost
column is used, if present, with fallback tocost
if not. - Billed Cost - All line item types are included. The
cost
column is used.
Bill column
bill/invoice_id
Uniquely identifies a particular bill. A single billing data ID for a single month may include multiple invoices. Ideally this field will not be populated until an Invoice is closed.
Kubernetes columns
k8s/cluster
k8s/cluster
The Kubernetes cluster associated with the resource.
k8s/namespace
k8s/namespace
The Kubernetes namespace associated with the resource.
k8s/deployment
k8s/deployment
The Kubernetes deployment associated with the resource.
k8s/labels
k8s/labels
The Kubernetes labels associated with the resource.
CBF examples
Compute purchase from Simple Cloud example
In this example we purchased some Compute from Simple Cloud. We also made an up-front committed use purchase, which lowered the normal hourly rate by 50%. Simple Cloud is running a promotion, so we received the SpecialCompute discount for using a certain Compute instance type. We also received the MVP Discount.
This first version of the bill just includes the actual charges. The cost for our Compute instances is at the reduced rate because of the committed use purchase; for example, instance-0000
would have otherwise cost $24 during that hour. The sum of the values in the cost/cost
column should equal exactly what we see on the bill for March: $105.30
lineitem/type | resource/service | resource/id | time/usage_start | cost/cost |
---|---|---|---|---|
Usage | Compute | instance-0000 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 12 |
Usage | Compute | instance-0001 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 20 |
Usage | Compute | instance-0002 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 15.3 |
Purchase | CommitedUse | commit-111-222-333 | 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z | 90 |
Discount | SpecialCompute | special-01010101 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | -12 |
Discount | MVPDiscount | mvp-aaa-12345 | 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z | -20 |
Discounted cost example
It would be helpful if the discount we received for using the promoted Compute instances were actually represented in the cost of those instances. In this example we will include the cost/discounted_cost
.
lineitem/type | resource/service | resource/id | time/usage_start | cost/cost | cost/discounted_cost |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Usage | Compute | instance-0000 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 12 | 8 |
Usage | Compute | instance-0001 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 20 | 16 |
Usage | Compute | instance-0002 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 15.3 | 11.3 |
Purchase | CommitedUse | commit-111-222-333 | 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z | 90 | 90 |
Discount | SpecialCompute | special-01010101 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | -12 | 0 |
Discount | MVPDiscount | mvp-aaa-12345 | 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z | -20 | -20 |
The SpecialCompute discount was distributed evenly over the individual instances. We also zeroed out the cost for the SpecialCompute line item because that discount has already been accounted for. We chose not to distribute the MVPDiscount since it was unrelated to the Compute instances. We copied over the values for the CommitedUse purchase and MVPDiscount, but we could have also left them blank and the cost/cost
value would have been used by default.
Amortized cost example
To help our engineers better understand the real cost of those Compute instances, we also want to include what we paid for the CommitedUse purchase.
lineitem/type | resource/service | resource/id | time/usage_start | cost/cost | cost/discounted_cost | cost/amortized_cost |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Usage | Compute | instance-0000 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 12 | 8 | 38 |
Usage | Compute | instance-0001 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 20 | 16 | 46 |
Usage | Compute | instance-0002 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | 15.3 | 11.3 | 41.3 |
Purchase | CommitedUse | commit-111-222-333 | 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z | 90 | 90 | 0 |
Discount | SpecialCompute | special-01010101 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | -12 | 0 | |
Discount | MVPDiscount | mvp-aaa-12345 | 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z | -20 | -20 |
The cost of the CommitedUse purchase was evenly distributed over all the Compute instances to which it applied, which in this case was all of them. We left the cost/amortized_cost
for the Discounts blank. We could have also copied over the values from the discounted_cost
(0 and -20). The important thing is that the the sum of the values in the cost/amortized_cost
column, including the default values for the blank cells, is still: $105.30
Kubernetes-related columns example
In this example, we add Kubernetes-related columns to the existing CBF data to provide more context on resource usage within a Kubernetes environment.
lineitem/type | resource/service | resource/id | time/usage_start | k8s/cluster | k8s/namespace | k8s/deployment | k8s/labels | cost/cost |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Usage | Compute | instance-0000 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | my-cluster | default | web-app | {"app": "frontend", "env": "production"} | 12 |
Usage | Compute | instance-0001 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | my-cluster | default | web-app | {"app": "frontend", "env": "production"} | 20 |
Usage | Compute | instance-0002 | 2022-03-16T13:00:00Z | my-cluster | default | worker-app | {"app": "backend", "env": "production"} | 15.3 |
Kubernetes-related information such as cluster, namespace, deployment, and labels is included. This allows tracking usage and costs within specific Kubernetes contexts.
Updated 1 day ago