Oracle Cloud Cost Tuning

Instructions

Step 1: Query Usage with the Usage API

The Usage API returns cost and usage data broken down by configurable dimensions:

import oci
from datetime import datetime, timedelta

config = oci.config.from_file("~/.oci/config")
usage_api = oci.usage_api.UsageapiClient(config)

# Query last 30 days of spend by service
response = usage_api.request_summarized_usages(
    oci.usage_api.models.RequestSummarizedUsagesDetails(
        tenant_id=config["tenancy"],
        time_usage_started=(datetime.utcnow() - timedelta(days=30)).isoformat() + "Z",
        time_usage_ended=datetime.utcnow().isoformat() + "Z",
        granularity="DAILY",
        query_type="COST",
        group_by=["service"]
    )
)

total_cost = 0.0
for item in response.data.items:
    cost = item.computed_amount or 0
    total_cost += cost
    if cost > 0:
        print(f"{item.service}: ${cost:.2f} ({item.currency})")

print(f"\nTotal 30-day spend: ${total_cost:.2f}")

Step 2: Break Down Cost by Compartment and Shape

Identify which compartments and shapes are driving your bill:

# Cost by compartment
response = usage_api.request_summarized_usages(
    oci.usage_api.models.RequestSummarizedUsagesDetails(
        tenant_id=config["tenancy"],
        time_usage_started=(datetime.utcnow() - timedelta(days=30)).isoformat() + "Z",
        time_usage_ended=datetime.utcnow().isoformat() + "Z",
        granularity="MONTHLY",
        query_type="COST",
        group_by=["compartmentName", "skuName"]
    )
)

for item in response.data.items:
    cost = item.computed_amount or 0
    if cost > 1.0:  # Filter noise
        print(f"{item.compartment_name} | {item.sku_name}: ${cost:.2f}")

Step 3: Create a Budget with Alert Rules

Budgets warn you before spend exceeds a threshold. Create them via SDK instead of hunting through the Console:

budget_client = oci.budget.BudgetClient(config)

# Create a monthly budget for a specific compartment
budget = budget_client.create_budget(
    oci.budget.models.CreateBudgetDetails(
        compartment_id=config["tenancy"],
        target_type="COMPARTMENT",
        targets=["ocid1.compartment.oc1..example"],
        amount=500.0,
        reset_period="MONTHLY",
        display_name="Dev Environment Budget",
        description="Monthly budget for dev compartment"
    )
).data

print(f"Budget created: {budget.id}")

# Add alert rule at 80% threshold
budget_client.create_alert_rule(
    budget_id=budget.id,
    create_alert_rule_details=oci.budget.models.CreateAlertRuleDetails(
        type="ACTUAL",
        threshold=80.0,
        threshold_type="PERCENTAGE",
        display_name="80% Warning",
        recipients="[email protected]",
        message="Dev budget has reached 80% of $500 monthly limit."
    )
)

# Add critical alert at 95%
budget_client.create_alert_rule(
    budget_id=budget.id,
    create_alert_rule_details=oci.budget.models.CreateAlertRuleDetails(
        type="ACTUAL",
        threshold=95.0,
        threshold_type="PERCENTAGE",
        display_name="95% Critical",
        recipients="[email protected]",
        message="CRITICAL: Dev budget at 95%. Review immediately."
    )
)
print("Alert rules created: 80% warning + 95% critical")

Step 4: Forecast Budget with Projected Spend

Set a forecast-based alert that warns you if your current burn rate will exceed the budget:

budget_client.create_alert_rule(
    budget_id=budget.id,
    create_alert_rule_details=oci.budget.models.CreateAlertRuleDetails(
        type="FORECAST",
        threshold=100.0,
        threshold_type="PERCENTAGE",
        display_name="Forecast Overspend",
        recipients="[email protected]",
        message="Projected spend will exceed monthly budget based on current usage."
    )
)
print("Forecast alert created: warns if burn rate exceeds budget")

Step 5: Cost Optimization Strategies

Apply these strategies to reduce OCI spending:

Always Free tier resources — run dev/test workloads for free:

• 2 AMD Compute VMs (1/8 OCPU, 1 GB each) or 4 Arm A1 VMs (24 GB total)
• 200 GB total block storage, 10 GB object storage
• 1 Autonomous Database (20 GB), 10 Mbps load balancer
• Monitoring: 500 million ingestion datapoints, 1 billion retrieval datapoints

Preemptible instances — up to 50% cheaper for fault-tolerant batch jobs:

compute = oci.core.ComputeClient(config)

compute.launch_instance(
    oci.core.models.LaunchInstanceDetails(
        compartment_id="ocid1.compartment.oc1..example",
        availability_domain="Uocm:US-ASHBURN-AD-1",
        shape="VM.Standard.E4.Flex",
        shape_config=oci.core.models.LaunchInstanceShapeConfigDetails(
            ocpus=4.0,
            memory_in_gbs=16.0
        ),
        preemptible_instance_config=oci.core.models.PreemptibleInstanceConfigDetails(
            preemption_action=oci.core.models.TerminatePreemptionAction(
                type="TERMINATE",
                preserve_boot_volume=False
            )
        ),
        source_details=oci.core.models.InstanceSourceViaImageDetails(
            image_id="ocid1.image.oc1..example",
            source_type="image"
        ),
        create_vnic_details=oci.core.models.CreateVnicDetails(
            subnet_id="ocid1.subnet.oc1..example"
        ),
        display_name="batch-worker-preemptible"
    )
)
print("Preemptible instance launched — up to 50% cost savings")

Reserved capacity — commit for 1 or 3 years for predictable discounts. Savings vary by shape and term length, typically 30–60% off on-demand pricing.

Output

Successful completion produces:

• Usage API queries showing cost breakdown by service, compartment, and SKU
• A monthly budget with alert rules at 80% and 95% thresholds
• A forecast-based alert for projected overspend
• Cost optimization patterns: Always Free resources, preemptible instances, and reserved capacity guidance

Error Handling

Examples

Quick cost check with OCI CLI:

# List all budgets in your tenancy
oci budgets budget list --compartment-id $OCI_TENANCY_OCID

# Get current month spend summary
oci usage-api usage-summary request-summarized-usages \
  --tenant-id $OCI_TENANCY_OCID \
  --time-usage-started "$(date -u -d '30 days ago' +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)" \
  --time-usage-ended "$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)" \
  --granularity MONTHLY \
  --query-type COST

Daily cost tracker script:

import oci
from datetime import datetime, timedelta

config = oci.config.from_file("~/.oci/config")
usage_api = oci.usage_api.UsageapiClient(config)

# Yesterday's spend
yesterday = datetime.utcnow() - timedelta(days=1)
response = usage_api.request_summarized_usages(
    oci.usage_api.models.RequestSummarizedUsagesDetails(
        tenant_id=config["tenancy"],
        time_usage_started=yesterday.replace(hour=0, minute=0).isoformat() + "Z",
        time_usage_ended=yesterday.replace(hour=23, minute=59).isoformat() + "Z",
        granularity="DAILY",
        query_type="COST",
        group_by=["service"]
    )
)

daily_total = sum(i.computed_amount or 0 for i in response.data.items)
print(f"Yesterday's spend: ${daily_total:.2f}")
for item in sorted(response.data.items, key=lambda x: x.computed_amount or 0, reverse=True)[:5]:
    print(f"  {item.service}: ${item.computed_amount or 0:.2f}")

Resources

• OCI Cost Analysis — Console cost tool documentation
• OCI Budgets — budget creation and alert rules
• OCI Pricing — current pricing by service and shape
• OCI Always Free — permanent free tier resources
• OCI Python SDK — SDK reference

Next Steps

After cost monitoring is in place, review oraclecloud-performance-tuning to right-size instances based on actual metrics, or see oraclecloud-observability to route budget alerts through the same notification topics as your infrastructure alarms.