Documentation
PolicyCortex Cloud Cost Optimization: AI-Driven Savings & Control
PolicyCortex provides intelligent cloud cost optimization through automated monitoring, AI-powered recommendations, and policy-driven cost controls. Reduce cloud spending by 30-50% while maintaining performance and compliance requirements. Get started by learning how to Integrate PolicyCortex with Azure or Integrate PolicyCortex with AWS.
Getting Started Guide: Install PolicyCortex for Cloud Governance in Minutes
Intelligent Cost Management
AI-Powered Optimization
Our machine learning algorithms analyze usage patterns, performance metrics, and business requirements to automatically identify cost optimization opportunities and implement savings recommendations.
Waste Detection
- • Idle and underutilized resources
- • Oversized instances and storage
- • Orphaned resources and snapshots
- • Unattached volumes and IPs
- • Duplicate and redundant services
Right-Sizing
- • CPU and memory optimization
- • Instance family recommendations
- • Storage tier optimization
- • Network bandwidth analysis
- • Performance impact assessment
Pricing Optimization
- • Reserved instance recommendations
- • Spot instance opportunities
- • Savings plan analysis
- • Committed use discounts
- • Cross-cloud price comparison
Cost Control Policies
Automated Compliance and Cost Management
Implement proactive cost controls through policy-driven automation that prevents cost overruns, enforces budgets, and maintains financial governance across all cloud environments. Learn how to Manage Cloud Governance Policies to enforce budget controls and compliance requirements.
Learn more about managing policies through our Policies API Documentation and ensure secure access with API Authentication for Cloud Governance.
{
"policy": {
"id": "budget-enforcement-policy",
"name": "Monthly Budget Enforcement",
"description": "Prevent cost overruns through automated budget controls"
},
"cost_controls": {
"budget_thresholds": {
"warning_threshold": 75,
"critical_threshold": 90,
"hard_limit": 100,
"currency": "USD"
},
"enforcement_actions": [
{
"threshold": 75,
"actions": [
"send_notification",
"create_ticket",
"email_stakeholders"
],
"recipients": ["finance@company.com", "cloudops@company.com"]
},
{
"threshold": 90,
"actions": [
"require_approval_for_new_resources",
"escalate_to_management",
"auto_scale_down_dev_environments"
]
},
{
"threshold": 100,
"actions": [
"block_new_resource_creation",
"auto_shutdown_non_production",
"emergency_notification"
],
"exceptions": ["critical_production_workloads"]
}
],
"resource_limits": {
"max_instance_types": ["m5.large", "c5.xlarge", "r5.2xlarge"],
"prohibited_services": ["gpu_instances", "dedicated_hosts"],
"require_approval": ["rds_large_instances", "high_iops_storage"]
},
"time_based_controls": {
"auto_shutdown": {
"dev_environments": {
"schedule": "18:00-08:00 weekdays, all weekends",
"exceptions": ["tagged:always_on=true"]
},
"test_environments": {
"schedule": "20:00-06:00 daily"
}
}
}
},
"monitoring": {
"frequency": "hourly",
"cost_allocation_tags": ["department", "project", "environment"],
"anomaly_detection": {
"enabled": true,
"sensitivity": "medium",
"minimum_threshold": 50
}
}
}Budget Alerts
- • Real-time budget tracking and alerts
- • Forecasted overspend predictions
- • Department and project-level budgets
- • Multi-channel notification delivery
- • Escalation and approval workflows through User Management in Cloud Governance
Spending Controls
- • Resource type and size restrictions
- • Service catalog with approved options
- • Automatic resource tagging requirements
- • Time-based resource scheduling
- • Emergency override procedures
Optimization Strategies
Resource Right-Sizing
Continuous analysis of resource utilization to recommend optimal sizing based on actual usage patterns, performance requirements, and cost efficiency targets.
Utilization Analysis
Performance Impact
Cost Benefits
Purchasing Optimization
Intelligent recommendations for reserved instances, savings plans, and committed use discounts based on usage patterns and financial optimization goals.
{
"purchasing_optimization": {
"analysis_period": "12_months",
"recommendation_criteria": {
"minimum_utilization": 75,
"payback_period_months": 12,
"confidence_threshold": 85
},
"recommendations": [
{
"type": "reserved_instance",
"instance_family": "m5.large",
"region": "us-east-1",
"term": "1_year",
"payment_option": "partial_upfront",
"quantity": 20,
"annual_savings": 156000,
"upfront_cost": 45000,
"payback_months": 3.5,
"confidence": 92
},
{
"type": "savings_plan",
"commitment": "100_per_hour",
"term": "3_year",
"payment_option": "no_upfront",
"coverage": ["ec2", "fargate", "lambda"],
"annual_savings": 280000,
"utilization_forecast": 89,
"confidence": 88
}
],
"optimization_schedule": {
"review_frequency": "monthly",
"auto_purchase": {
"enabled": false,
"max_commitment": 50000,
"require_approval": true
}
}
}
}Automation Benefits
- • Continuous optimization without manual effort
- • Immediate implementation of safe changes via Cloud Compliance and Cost Management APIs
- • Rollback capabilities for failed optimizations
- • Performance monitoring during changes
- • Cost impact tracking and validation
ROI Tracking
- • Before and after cost comparisons
- • Cumulative savings over time
- • Optimization success rate metrics
- • Performance impact measurements
- • Executive dashboard reporting
Cost Analytics & Reporting
Advanced Cost Intelligence
Comprehensive cost analytics with drill-down capabilities, trend analysis, and predictive modeling to provide deep insights into cloud spending patterns and optimization opportunities.
Cost Allocation
Resource attribution accuracy
Forecasting
Prediction accuracy
Anomaly Detection
Detection time
Recommendations
Continuous analysis
Executive Dashboards
- • Real-time cost overview and trends
- • Budget vs. actual spending analysis
- • Cost optimization opportunity pipeline
- • Savings achievement tracking
- • Department and project breakdowns with User Management in Cloud Governance
Detailed Analytics
- • Resource-level cost attribution
- • Usage pattern analysis and trends
- • Cost driver identification
- • Cross-cloud spending comparison
- • Custom cost allocation models