In the complex world of cloud cost optimization, one size rarely fits all. At PointFive, we know that cost optimization isn’t just about delivering research-backed, ready-to-use, actionable and impactful opportunities. It’s also about providing enterprises that have more complex requirements with the tools to act effectively and align optimizations with their specific business logics.

Knowing that different organizations need to slice and dice cloud data differently, we started by focusing on flexible data views. Now, we’re extending the same approach with Detections. The feature is designed to combine expert recommendations with advanced flexibility and customization so that recommendations fit naturally into your business operations.

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Making Recommendations Work for You

Imagine this: You have an RDS instance running with low CPU utilization, perhaps 10% or less, for 30 days. Does this mean it’s underutilized? 

At the organizational level, the database might seem like a candidate for downsizing or decommissioning. But what if that instance is tied to a specific project supporting infrequent but critical tasks, like monthly reporting or disaster recovery?

With the Detections feature, admins can adjust variables like CPU utilization thresholds or lookback periods, ensuring recommendations align with broader organizational priorities and reflect the needs of the organization as a whole.

But what if we could go even further? 

Picture the potential of customizing detections at a more granular level, such as per account or project. This could allow for even more targeted optimization and alignment with the specific needs of individual teams or workloads. While the organizational-level flexibility of Detections is already a powerful tool, exploring finer granularity can open new possibilities for personalization in cloud cost optimization. 

This approach enables tailored strategies for different environments or projects. For example, in a development environment, thresholds can be adjusted to prioritize savings, while stricter parameters can be applied to critical production projects to ensure compliance and performance.

The detections catalog lists all detections relevant to the account, along with key details such as service, number of opportunities, and potential savings

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Key Features of the Detections Module

We designed Detections to give admins the tools they need to customize and optimize cloud cost management effectively. It comes with several powerful capabilities:

• Focused Catalog: Provides visibility into a tailored catalog of detections specific to the organization. Instead of wading through an exhaustive list, admins see only the detections relevant to their environment, streamlining the process of identifying actionable opportunities.
• Enable or Disable Detections: Allows admins to easily toggle detections on or off as needed. Disabling a detection automatically archives related opportunities and ensures that no new opportunities of this type are created, while re-enabling instantly restores them to their previous status.
• Customizable Variables: Allows admins to adjust critical parameters, such as thresholds and lookback periods, to align recommendations with organizational usage patterns. For instance, tightening the criteria for the Underutilized EC2 Instance detection by lowering the CPU utilization threshold, changing threshold evaluation metric from P99 to MAX, or extending the lookback period makes it stricter and more precise. Updated variables take effect during the next run within 24 hours, and admins can always reset values to the recommended defaults provided by our research team.

The detection configuration page allows users to customize parameters like CPU utilization thresholds and the lookback period.

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With these capabilities in hand, Detections ensures that recommendations are not only accurate but also actionable, giving admins the flexibility and control to focus on what truly matters.

Future releases will include control over the recommended instances, enhanced granularity, and tailored suggestions for the best configuration combinations to meet various needs. This allowsDetections to continue evolving into a powerful tool for optimizing cloud costs and aligning strategies with organizational priorities.

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More Control, Less Noise

Traditional tools often overwhelm teams with generic suggestions or recommendations that don’t really move the needle. With Detections, admins are in full control. By customizing configurations, teams can filter out the noise and focus on the opportunities that matter most.

This isn’t just about adding extra features—it’s about giving you the control to shape your optimization journey in a way that works for your business. 

The Detections feature is a step forward in how organizations manage and optimize their cloud environments. By combining expert insights with flexibility and control, we empower admins to make smarter decisions and achieve meaningful savings.

This is just the beginning. As Detections evolves, it will deliver even greater customization, enabling admins to refine optimizations to better meet the unique needs of their teams and workloads.

Whether you’re fine-tuning thresholds for an inactive S3 bucket or disabling a detection that doesn’t fit your cloud footprint, Detections is here to make cloud cost optimization more flexible and effective.

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