Release Notes 32.1

New Postgres SQL Inventory and Summary Reports  

We are now ingesting PostgreSQL data from the Azure PostgreSQL API to enable Inventory and Summary reports for projects and MAVs. Reports may be exported to CSV or PDF. 

Other Improvements

• Marketplace taxes are now listed within Tax Services rather than under Marketplace items 

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug causing some AWS BPCs to not expand when selected
• Resolved an issue where, under certain conditions, large exports would fail to send daily advanced grouping email 
• Improved logic for Cost Alerts edge-case scenario where alerts could be sent without relevant data
• Resolved an issue where AWS cost ingestion was failing as a result of internal platform changes being implemented to improve performance  

Release Notes 32.2

Improved AWS Credit Summary Report  

AWS Savings Plan Negations may now be filtered separately from other AWS Credits, allowing customers to quickly identify and manage the different credit types 

Other Improvements

• Saved Filter format improvements now allow customers to pass through the filter name as the filename, simplifying the management of Scheduled Invoices 

Bug Fixes

• Resolved an issue where AWS cost ingestion was failing as a result of an incorrect update to code 
• “RDS DB Instance Maintenance Events Scheduled” Best Practice Check now correctly supports all maintenance types
• Resolved an intermittent issue with downloading Inventory Reports using the Safari browser

MSP Reseller Link / L2 Customer Improvements

Partner Plan settings are now available in the CMx UI; customers using the L1/L2 construct may now manage their customers using this new page 

Other MSP/Reseller Link / L2 Customer Bug Fixes

• Addressed an issue where the Single Month Billing Summary report incorrectly reported the Cost for Highest Service when using the cost type of List Cost
• Resolved an issue related to List Cost usage where unused RI hours were incorrectly not being recalculated for August on a no upfront RI when Reserved Instance Unsharing was enabled 
• Addressed an issue where L2 Pseudo-payer AWS invoices were not being sent when the billing period was finalized

New Tag Mapping API for AWS and Azure

Use Case: Customers wish to manage (get, create, and delete) their Tag Mappings via API call to streamline and improve efficiency, to include a JSON backup of current configurations. 

We have implemented new API calls supporting AWS and Azure tag mapping management, as follows:  

• A GET call to retrieve all the existing mappings and their associated configurations. (Azure and AWS)

  • API Reference Guide 

• A GET call to retrieve specific existing mappings and their associated configurations. (Azure and AWS)

  • API Reference Guide 

• A POST call to delete existing mappings. (Azure and AWS)

  • API Reference Guide 

• A POST call to add a tag mapping. (Azure)

  • API Reference Guide 

New Tag Mapping Search Function

We have implemented a new Tag Mapping Search Function as follows:  

Other Improvements

• Added ability for admins to manually provide Activation links from CMx
• Improved performance of Reservation collection to speed billing data into the platform. 

Bug Fix

• Fix a database issue that was causing performance issues under specific conditions.
• Fixed an issue in the MAV EC2 RI Inventory report that was showing a negative number for the Total Instances Unused 
• Addressed an issue where the L2 notifications were incorrectly reporting “month not finalized” even with the L1 finalized and L2 finalized.  

Improvements

• In Inventory > EC2 >  List of EC2 Instances:

  • Added Pricing Platform to indicate the platform details associated with the billing code of the AMI. This field corresponds to the Platform Details field in Instance Details in the AWS Console and should be used when validating the cost data in CloudCheckr against AWS pricing calculator.  

  • Added License Model to indicate the licensing model of an instance. This makes sure the correct rate is selected when calculating the on-demand cost.

     

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that prevented Saved Filters on Azure MAVs from processing successfully
• Addressed an issue where automatic account creation was not occurring, even with the “Automatically Register Payee Accounts” was enabled
• End Dates for custom charges can now be removed 

New Azure Plan Purchase Cost Assignment

Use Case: By default, Azure Plan CSPs group all licenses into a “Not Set” subscription which does not allow users to apply custom charges to push license costs to subscriptions

Using the new Azure One Time Charge Configuration screen, customers can now assign Azure Plan one-time purchase costs (i.e. license purchases) to individual subscriptions. Create, Remove, and Edit mappings using a view of filterable rows per one-time charge type, allowing the user to assign purchase costs to the desired subscription. 

Following is the information that surfaced for filtering and assignment: 

• Billing Customer (Azure Customer Name from the billing file)
• Subscription (Alias/friendly name of the subscription, and GUID)
• Consumed Service
• Meter Category
• Meter Name 

New Program Credit Automated Assignment  

Use Case: MSPs who use List Cost calculations may wish to standardize and automate the way Program Credits are treated each month when costs are passed from L1 to L2.    

Using a new menu in the Assign Credits Screen, MSP customers can now automate the assignment of Program Credits as part of List Cost calculations.  

• Program Credit Management enables the automated assignment of Program Credits as part of List Cost calculations, for the following types:

  • CloudFront Security Bundle
  • Solution Provider Program (SPP)
  • Enterprise Discount Program (EDP)
  • Private Pricing Agreement (PPA)
  • Tax refund line item
  • NOTE: if an automated assignment is selected, it will override manual credit assignment and any rules configured in “Assign Credits Rules”
  • Program Credit Management: Setting up auto assignment of program credits to its owner from this menu will override manual assignment and the rules configured in "Assign Credits Rules" during the billing process.

Other Improvements

• Remove Active Credentials in an AWS Project  

  • Active credentials may now be deleted for a given AWS Project by selecting the Delete button on the Billing and Usage Configuration page
  • Typically used by MSPs who no longer are responsible for a given customer’s cloud estate, however, that historic data must be retained

Bug Fixes

• When configuring Alerts, the "Send only once" checkbox now properly saves the setting

July 31, 2023 - Release Notes 31.4.1

Bug Fixes

• Addressed an issue where the AWS billing collector was not able to process data as a result of SQS data column inconsistencies between the consolidated CUR / Payer and Payee levels 
• Improved performance of certain database queries that were resulting in an unexpected inability to connect

New Notification Capabilities: New Cloud Accounts Added to the Bill

Use Case: Customers do not always know when a net-new account has been added to their bill. 
MSPs will want to update reseller links, and enterprise customers want to ensure their new accounts are in the correct families for capabilities such as unsharing logic.

Customers can now configure an email notification to be sent when a new account has been detected on their AWS or Azure bill

• Emails can be configured at the “L1” as well as the “L2” if you are using that construct 
• Alert will indicate the originating paying entity (AWS payer, Azure CSP, Azure EA, etc) by both the project name and the provider ID

Improvements

• Added pricing tier support for SQS.
• Add a button to delete Active AWS Credentials - used for when a project no longer needs to collect data however the historic data needs to be retained (i.e. an L2 customer switches L1 provider, and historic data is needed even though new data ingestion is not needed)  

Bug Fixes

• Clarified that for the IAM Password BPC that per AWS the password policy must have been customized by the end user on AWS in order to accurately check
• Fixed RDS Cost Detail summary where Instance Data Transfer Out Cost was displaying incorrectly when choosing list cost.
• Improved accuracy of the Azure Perimeter Assessment feature which omitted certain findings when the ‘Filter out any Location with no publicly accessible resources or VPCs’ option was selected.
• Fixed an issue where Advanced Grouping and Daily Summary would display the incorrect EC2 Instance Size. 
• Fixed an issue with API GetDetailedBillingFile 
• Resolved an issue where an Azure MCA was unable to re-credential

MSP Reseller Link / L2 Customer Improvements

• Added ability for MSPs to support list cost in Cost Summary emails 
• L2 Notification Capabilities: New Cloud Accounts Added to the Bill (see above) 

• List Cost can now be sent in email notifications, at the MSP or Distributor’s discretion (access via Email Settings, or Manage Emails): 

  • Summary of Daily Bill
  • Summary of Monthly Bill
  • Daily Consolidated Billing Summary
  • Monthly Consolidated Billing Summary

31.1 Release notes

Improvements

• Azure Custom Usage Rates can now be configured with “Start” and “End” Dates to permit customers to control when these rates are applied.

Bug Fixes

• Addressed an issue where the List of S3 Buckets Estimated Cost (Inventory report) was incorrect
• Added additional controls to the PCI DSS Compliance

31.2 Release notes

Savings Plan Amortization Now Available in Configure Custom Cost

• Amortize upfront costs by proportional payee hourly usage

  • Amortization is added as an incremental charge for every hour an instance is used that matches an RI. When using Blended cost, amortization is spread across all hours for a matching instance regardless of OnDemand or RI utilization. When using Unblended cost, amortization is spread across all hours utilizing the reservation.

• Simple monthly amortization

  • Amortization is added as a single charge per RI type at the end of the month

• On-demand amortization cap

  • Amortization is added to each usage row up until the on-demand cost of the running instance. Any remaining amortization is charged back to the account that purchased the reserved instance.

Improvements

• AWS and Azure advanced grouping items, as well as report filters and dropdowns, are now sorted alphanumerically

• AWS Custom Charge API has been enhanced with new parameter support, and now includes:

  • add_custom_billing_charge_percent_all_charges_v3

    • Admin API Reference Guide 

  • edit_custom_billing_charge_percent_all_charges_v3

    • Admin API Reference Guide 

  • add_custom_billing_charge_monthly_percent_v3

    • Admin API Reference Guide 

  • edit_custom_billing_charge_monthly_percent_v3

    • Admin API Reference Guide 
• Added Pricing Tier Support for AWS EBS Service 
• Introduced a toggle in the email settings page of a MAV account that enables the user to view list cost type summary emails instead of unblended which was set by default 

Bug Fixes

• Resolved an issue where custom images/logos were not rendering properly for exported reports
• Fixed an issue where Admins and Partner SysAdmins were unable to access the Retired RDS Reserved DB Instances report 

Audit history search has been expanded and may now be downloaded as a CSV 

• AWS Custom Usage Rates can now be configured with “Start” and “End” Dates to permit customers to control when these rates are applied.
• Added Pricing Tier Support for AWS API Gateway Service.
• Download functionality has been added for the Auto Scaling Groups report.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved an issue where some accounts were not generating invoices.
• Resolved an issue where the ‘Unused Elastic Load Balancers’ Best Practice Check was reporting false positives, prompting invalid Cost savings opportunities in the Cost Savings report.
• Resolved an issue where some L2 customers were unable to Group By tag keys in the Advanced Grouping report.
• Resolved an issue where the Azure Reserved Instance Recommendation report was not available to some customers.
• Updated the columns listed in the CSV export from List of Elastic Container Service to match the columns displayed in the UI.
• Resolved an issue where new payer accounts were being classified as unknown.
• Resolved an issue where the custom logo was missing from invoices.

Improvements

Billing Report Change Notification

We now alert you in the event of a new billing file after the month has closed at the Payer (AWS) or Agreement (Azure, EA/MCA/CSP) level available for possible ingestion / reload.  When we detect a more current file for AWS or Azure we will alert you in the bell notification area so that you can take any desired actions such as reload to include OOCB (Out of Cycle Billing Charges) such as Support. 

Bug Fixes

• Resolved an issue where loading View Resources on a Tag Value would fail  
• Resolved an issue where Friendly Names in Single Month Billing Summary export were incorrect
• Resolved an issue where the use of Azure tag mapping containing the “Paying Account” parameter would cause billing ingestion to fail.
• Resolved an issue where the unlock/reload button was missing

New API Capabilities: Unlock and Reprocess historical billing Reports (AWS & Azure)

• Added new API calls that enable customers to get the status of, lock and unlock, and initiate reprocessing for a given month: 

  • AWS API calls

    • Get Status
    • Unlock Month
    • Reprocess Month

  • Azure API calls

    • Get Status
    • Unlock Month
    • Reprocess Month

Use Case:

Customers chose to reload/reprocess data published by a Cloud Provider in order to ensure the most up-to-date costs are represented in the CloudCheckr platform. There may also be times that custom charges need to be updated across a wide range of projects in CloudCheckr, or some other adjustment needs to be made to multiple projects. It is now possible to programmatically query to check status, lock or unlock, and initiate a reload for a given project or set of projects within CloudCheckr.  

Improvements

• New Group By options have been added to the Advanced Grouping Report to allow deeper cost analysis (AWS and Azure)

  • AWS

    • Invoice ID
    • Paying Account ID
    • Commercial vs GovCloud

  • Azure

    • Paying Account ID
• Added support for resource tag data for the AWS Elastic Container Service, which has also been added to BPCs and can be downloaded

Fixes

• Addressed a performance issue with the historic billing collector which was causing extended cost ingestion times
• Updated RDS Custom Oracle Single AZ RAC instance pricing after deprecation by AWS
• Fixed an issue where Cost Changes Report was not loading
• Enhanced descriptions in cost savings report CSV export
• BPC export of “Large Exports” may now be downloaded 
• Resolved CSV column alignment issues impacting Inventory Reports exports 
• Fixed false positive issues with Azure BPC “App Service with SSL Disabled” and AWS Automatic RDS Database Backup”
• Fixed issue with improperly tagged resources report where old rules were not being resolved 
• Addressed loading issues for EC2 RI inventory, Instance History, and History by Time reports (jobs expected to take a few days to complete) 

MSP Reseller Link / L2 Customer Fixes

• Resolved billing collector issue impacting reseller-linked projects (L2s) that prevented successful completion in certain scenarios 
• Ensured proper sharing of savings plan costs with reseller-linked projects (L2s) in specific edge cases 
• Fixed an issue where some Friendly Names were not being passed to an MSP’s L2 customer 

April 7 30.2.2 release notes

• Addressed an unexpected scenario where AWS included new EC2 instance types in the CUR file without making those instance types available via the Public AWS Pricing API (CloudCheckr relies upon the Public AWS Pricing API as part of the overall cost ingestion process) which caused some data ingestion to be incorrect 
• Addressed an issue accidentally introduced by a code refactor in v30.1.1 designed to improve performance under certain high-volume reservation purchase scenarios