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AWS Bill कमी करा: Practical DevOps Checklist

By Ravindra Bagale, DevOps trainer · LinkedIn · Published: 28 October 2026 · Last updated: 28 October 2026

Billing alarm, tags, orphans साफ, NAT/ALB, right-size, monthly Cost Explorer.

Language: English · मराठी · हिंदी

Checklist का

bill drift.

Why: hero cleanup परत येते. What: alarm→orphans→size→review. How: finance threshold.

Example 1: Billing alarm

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name billing-100-usd --metric-name EstimatedCharges --namespace AWS/Billing --statistic Maximum --period 21600 --evaluation-periods 1 --threshold 100 --comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold --dimensions Name=Currency,Value=USD --contact-groups ...'

You will see:

aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name billing-100-usd --metric-name EstimatedCharges --namespace AWS/Billing --statistic Maximum --period 21600 --evaluation-periods 1 --threshold 100 --comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold --dimensions Name=Currency,Value=USD --contact-groups ...

What it means: us-east-1 billing metric — set an INR-aware threshold your team agrees.

Example 7: Tag for cost

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Environment=dev, Owner=payments, Project=checkout'

You will see:

Environment=dev, Owner=payments, Project=checkout

What it means: Without tags Cost Explorer is a fog.

Example 10: Budget in INR talk

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Agree a monthly budget with finance; alarm at 50 percent and 80 percent'

You will see:

Agree a monthly budget with finance; alarm at 50 percent and 80 percent

What it means: Startups in Bengaluru do this weekly in stand-up.

Concept 1: Idle

stopped ≠ free.

Why: EBS/snaps. What: describe-. How:* ticket ने delete.

Example 2: Find stopped vs unused

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=stopped --query "Reservations[].Instances[].InstanceId"'

You will see:

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=stopped --query "Reservations[].Instances[].InstanceId"

What it means: Stopped instances still cost for EBS volumes.

Example 3: Unattached EBS

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws ec2 describe-volumes --filters Name=status,Values=available --query "Volumes[].VolumeId"'

You will see:

aws ec2 describe-volumes --filters Name=status,Values=available --query "Volumes[].VolumeId"

What it means: available = not attached — common orphan bill.

Example 4: Old snapshots

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws ec2 describe-snapshots --owner-ids self --query "Snapshots[?StartTime<=\`2024-01-01\`].SnapshotId"'

You will see:

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --owner-ids self --query "Snapshots[?StartTime<=\`2024-01-01\`].SnapshotId"

What it means: Keep restore points you need; delete ancient labs.

Concept 2: Network

ALB/NAT idle bill.

Why: zero traffic ALB. What: list; share NAT. How: gp3.

Example 5: Idle load balancers

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws elbv2 describe-load-balancers --query "LoadBalancers[].LoadBalancerArn"'

You will see:

aws elbv2 describe-load-balancers --query "LoadBalancers[].LoadBalancerArn"

What it means: ALB/NLB cost daily even with zero traffic — Flipkart labs forget this.

Example 6: Right-size hint

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'If CPU < 10 percent for two weeks, try a smaller instance type in next maintenance'

You will see:

If CPU < 10 percent for two weeks, try a smaller instance type in next maintenance

What it means: Right-size beats buying bigger "just in case".

Example 11: gp3 vs gp2

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Prefer gp3 volumes when migrating — often cheaper for same baseline'

You will see:

Prefer gp3 volumes when migrating — often cheaper for same baseline

What it means: Easy win during Terraform refactors.

Concept 3: Tags/rhythm

Cost Explorer.

Why: untagged. What: Environment tags; Monday. How: S3 lifecycle.

Example 8: S3 lifecycle

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Move rare logs to Glacier Instant Retrieval or Deep Archive after N days'

You will see:

Move rare logs to Glacier Instant Retrieval or Deep Archive after N days

What it means: Hot S3 for forever logs burns INR.

Example 9: NAT gateway watch

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'NAT Gateway hourly + data processing — share or remove unused NATs in idle VPCs'

You will see:

NAT Gateway hourly + data processing — share or remove unused NATs in idle VPCs

What it means: Quiet killer on small AWS accounts.

Example 12: Monthly review ritual

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Calendar: first Monday — Cost Explorer by service + kill orphans checklist'

You will see:

Calendar: first Monday — Cost Explorer by service + kill orphans checklist

What it means: Ritual beats one heroic cleanup.

Bill checklist card

1 alarm 2 tags 3 orphans 4 ALB/NAT 5 right-size 6 S3 7 monthly

Suppose: no alarm

us-east-1 billing metric.

Suppose: dev=prod cost

tags/NAT.

Check yourself (quiz)

alarm → orphans → right-size → review. Did you understand? Let us try it once more.