What’s actually slowing this PC down?
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Use AWS Compute Optimizer and Cost Optimization Hub to surface likely idle resources, then verify each candidate in Trusted Advisor and Cost Explorer before changing it. These tools provide account-specific estimates—not proof that a resource is safe to remove or a universal estimate of AWS waste. What you could save depends on your resources, Regions, configuration, usage, pricing, discounts, and commitments.
Start with AWS recommendations, then verify each candidate
- Set the scope. Choose the AWS account or organization, Regions, and review period. For organization-wide recommendations, the management account must opt in where required and have appropriate access.
- Review Compute Optimizer. In the AWS console, open Compute Optimizer and inspect its recommendations for idle resources. AWS describes the service as analyzing resource configurations and utilization metrics to identify idle resources and make rightsizing recommendations (AWS Compute Optimizer User Guide).
- Check Cost Optimization Hub. In Billing and Cost Management, review recommendations across accounts and Regions. It combines idle-resource and rightsizing recommendations with other cost actions, including Savings Plans and Reserved Instances; not every recommendation represents an unused resource. AWS says its estimates account for commercial terms such as active commitments and deduplicate related opportunities (Cost Optimization Hub documentation).
- Inspect supporting signals. Use Trusted Advisor’s resource-specific checks and Cost Explorer’s Resource Optimization report. The latter can identify idle or low-utilization EC2 instances and suggest stopping or downsizing them, while other services have separate utilization opportunities (AWS cost optimization guidance).
- Validate ownership, purpose, dependencies, and recovery. Contact the owner or team responsible for the resource. Check whether it supports failover, seasonal demand, backups, compliance, or a planned workload, and examine relevant utilization and traffic history.
- Choose a reversible, appropriate action. Depending on the resource and workload, that might mean stopping, resizing, deleting, or preserving it. Record the decision and recovery path before acting.
- Check the result. After the change, confirm that the workload still operates as expected and compare subsequent billing with the prior period. Record realized savings separately from AWS’s estimate.
What each AWS tool can—and cannot—tell you
| Tool | Useful for | Important qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Compute Optimizer | Resource-level utilization analysis and idle or rightsizing recommendations across supported resource types. | Requires opt-in and sufficient resource-specific metric data. Recommendation coverage is not an inventory of every potentially unused resource. |
| Cost Optimization Hub | Consolidating recommendations across accounts and Regions, with estimates that AWS says reflect applicable commercial terms. | Includes broader optimization actions, not only idle resources. Related categories can overlap, so totals may not equal the sum of category figures. |
| Trusted Advisor | Resource-specific checks, including underutilized EBS volumes and inactive NAT Gateways. | Check criteria are specific to each resource and check. AWS says newer cost optimization checks refresh several times daily; a change may take a few hours to appear. |
| Cost Explorer Resource Optimization | Identifying idle or low-utilization EC2 instances and considering whether to stop or downsize them. | The EC2 report does not discover every kind of AWS waste; other resource types require their own views and checks. |
For fleet-wide reviews, confirm the organization opt-in and access configuration for the tools you use. Coverage, permissions, and the exact recommendation set depend on the service and account setup (Compute Optimizer overview; Cost Optimization Hub overview).
Read eligibility and lookback criteria in context
A recommendation depends on the signals AWS can observe and the eligibility rules for that resource. For EC2 instances and Auto Scaling groups, Compute Optimizer requires at least 30 hours of CloudWatch metric data in the past 14 days. Cost Explorer must be enabled for Compute Optimizer to use billing data for savings calculations and pricing information. Other resource types have their own requirements (Compute Optimizer requirements).
Trusted Advisor’s thresholds are check-specific, not universal definitions of idle. AWS describes an underutilized EBS check for volumes that are unattached or average less than 1 IOPS per day over the past 7 days. Its inactive NAT Gateway check uses 0 bytes processed during the previous 30 days; NAT Gateways can still incur hourly and data-processing charges (Trusted Advisor check reference).
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These signals have limits: a quiet resource may still have a standby, recovery, seasonal, or compliance role, while a resource with too little eligible metric data may not receive a recommendation at all. Treat both a positive recommendation and an empty results view as evidence to investigate, not a final operational decision.
Estimate what the candidates cost
Use the resource-level cost and savings figures shown in the relevant AWS reports, and keep the resource, account, Region, and time period attached to each number. AWS estimates are not the same as realized savings: the actual bill impact depends on configuration, usage, pricing, discounts, and commitments. Cost Optimization Hub says it incorporates commercial terms such as active Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, but do not assume that estimates from different tools use identical assumptions.
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Avoid adding every displayed opportunity into one total. AWS cautions that its total savings opportunity may not equal the sum of idle, rightsizing, and license savings figures, because recommendations can be related or overlap (Cost Optimization Hub dashboard guidance). To measure realized savings, track the action taken and compare billing after the change against a suitable prior period, accounting for workload changes and other cost adjustments.
Preserve data and reduce the risk of a mistaken deletion
Deletion is not always the right first move. Establish the workload role and dependencies, confirm that the data is recoverable, and select a recovery method appropriate to the resource before removing it. For qualifying EBS volumes, Compute Optimizer documents a recommendation to snapshot and delete volumes that have been unattached from EC2 instances for 32 or more days. That is a recommended action for eligible volumes—not permission to automatically delete every unattached volume (Compute Optimizer idle resource recommendations).
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- Confirm an owner and the resource’s current and planned purpose.
- Review utilization and traffic over an appropriate period, including known seasonal or failover needs.
- Check dependencies and recovery requirements before stopping or deleting anything.
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- Document the change, recovery path, and post-change workload and billing checks.
When to consider a third-party FinOps platform
AWS-native tools are the direct starting point for account recommendations and billing context. A third-party platform may be useful if you need additional cost allocation, dashboards, or team workflows. Vantage describes AWS cost visibility, recommendations, and automated remediation, and documents a read-only cross-account IAM role for its AWS integration (Vantage AWS integration). CloudZero describes resource-level AWS recommendations with estimated savings and guidance (CloudZero recommendations). These are vendor descriptions, not independent comparative tests or evidence that either platform finds more waste or guarantees savings.
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