What should a SysOps administrator do to meet these requirements in the MOST operationally efficient way?
Generate Amazon CloudWatch dashboards by using CloudWatch insights and AWS Cost Explorer data.
Generate an AWS Cost and Usage Report. Store the report in Amazon S3. Use Amazon Athena to query the data. Use Amazon QuickSight to develop dashbosrds based on the data in the AWS Cost and Usage Report.
Create an AWS Lambda function that runs once a day and assumes a role in every account in the organization. Configure the Lambda function to read AWS Cost Explorer data in each account and to store the cost data in an Amazon S3 bucket. Use Amazon Athena to query the data. Use Amazon QuickSight to display the data in dashboards.
Create an IAM user for the finance team. Grant permissions to the IAM user to view AWS Cost Explorer data and billing data in the management account.
Explanations:
CloudWatch dashboards provide monitoring of AWS resources but do not offer detailed cost tracking. AWS Cost Explorer provides more detailed and granular cost insights, but integrating it with CloudWatch Insights is not an efficient method for tracking cost trends every hour.
The AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) provides detailed, granular data on costs, which can be queried with Amazon Athena. Amazon QuickSight can be used to visualize the data in dashboards. This solution provides the granularity and flexibility required by the finance team.
While Lambda can gather cost data across accounts, this introduces unnecessary complexity and operational overhead. Querying AWS Cost Explorer data via Lambda for each account and storing it in S3 is not as efficient as using the Cost and Usage Report.
Granting IAM users permission to view AWS Cost Explorer data is a good start, but it does not provide the detailed and hourly granularity required by the finance team. Additionally, this solution lacks the capability to create detailed dashboards automatically.
I think the answer is:
Generate an AWS Cost and Usage Report. Store the report in Amazon S3. Use Amazon Athena to query the data. Use Amazon QuickSight to develop dashbosrds based on the data in the AWS Cost and Usage Report.