Moneta Forecast Checklist

This checklist evaluates current consumption trends, historical data, and projected workloads, ensuring that cloud resource planning aligns with business needs. By following the Forecast Checklist, organizations can anticipate potential budget overruns, adjust capacity planning, and optimize spending, enabling more precise and efficient cloud cost management.

To use the moneta Forecast, enter the forecast details such as name, owners, and description.  In the forecast creation section, a forecast is selected for the Cost Allocation Group selected based on the historical spend of that Group.  You can then enter either dollar or percentage changes expected from the specific categories listed below with example questions listed for consideration when determining how you might want to adjust the forecast determined from historical spend.

Historical Analysis 

What has been the month-over-month cost trend for the last 6 months?

Are there any seasonal patterns in AWS usage and costs?

What were the primary cost drivers in each of the last 6 months?

Have there been any significant spikes or drops in costs? If so, what caused them?

What is the current breakdown of costs by service (e.g., EC2, S3, RDS)?

How have resource utilization changed over the past 6 months?

What cost optimization measures have been implemented in the past 6 months, and what was their impact?

Product Roadmap

What new products or features are planned for release in the next month, quarter, and year?

For each new product/feature:

What AWS services will it require?

What is the expected resource consumption (compute, storage, network)?

Are there any plans for gradual rollout or A/B testing that might affect resource needs?

Are any existing products being significantly updated? How will this affect their AWS resource requirements?

Are there plans to migrate any on-premises systems to AWS in the forecast period?

Engineering Innovation

Are there any planned architectural changes that could impact AWS usage?

Are we adopting any new AWS services in the upcoming period?

Are there plans to implement or expand use of serverless technologies?

Will we be adopting any new development methodologies or tools that might affect our cloud usage patterns?

Are there any proof-of-concept projects that might turn into production workloads?

Rate Optimization Activities

Any plans to purchase any new Reserved Instances or Savings Plans?

Are any existing Reserved Instances or Savings Plans expiring?

Have we evaluated our eligibility for volume discounts on any services?

Considering any committed use discounts for specific services?

Any plans to explore the AWS Marketplace for any cost-effective third-party solutions?

Usage Optimization Activities

What cost optimization initiatives are planned for the next month, quarter, and year? 

Are there plans to implement auto-scaling for any services?

Any plans to implement any new policies for resource tagging or management?

Are there planned efforts to right-size existing resources?

Will we be implementing any new monitoring or alerting for cost management?

Are there plans to optimize data transfer costs?

Will we be implementing any new data lifecycle management policies?

Product End-of-Life Activities

Are any products or features being deprecated in the forecast period?

For each product being deprecated:

What is the timeline for winding down?

What AWS resources will be freed up?

Are there any associated termination or data export costs to consider?

Are any legacy systems being replaced that might affect our AWS usage?

Budget Considerations

What is our overall IT budget for the forecast period, and how much is allocated to cloud services?

Are there any planned changes in how we allocate or chargeback AWS costs internally? 

Considering any currency exchange rate fluctuations for our forecast?