Cloud Spend Attribution via Directed Graph Modeling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Companies face challenges in accurately tracking and attributing the cost of cloud resources consumed by their software deployments on cloud services provider systems, leading to obscured fees and difficulty in managing cloud spend, which affects software development and deployment efficiency.
Innovation Solution
A cloud services provider analysis system utilizing graph theory techniques, specifically the maximum flow problem, to model and attribute cloud spend across different levels of granularity, enabling precise cost attribution to products and services, and optimizing resource usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If companies deploy complex software systems on cloud services provider systems to support growing consumer bases, then service capability and system functionality are improved, but cloud services provider system fees and cost tracking complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments cloud spend tracking into multiple hierarchical levels (organization-level, product-level, service-level, and resource-level). This segmentation allows companies to maintain comprehensive tracking of complex software systems while breaking down the overall complexity into manageable segments at different organizational levels, enabling targeted cost analysis without being overwhelmed by the entire system's complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary cost tracking and attribution system that sits between the cloud services provider's billing system and the company's financial management system. This intermediary layer automatically captures, normalizes, and attributes cloud spend data across multiple dimensions, reducing the complexity of tracking fees for complex software deployments by providing a standardized interface that translates raw billing data into actionable cost insights.
2Adaptability or versatility
If companies use cloud services provider systems to execute applications in different geographic locations, then system availability and customer reach are improved, but bandwidth usage fees and resource consumption costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by enabling cost tracking and analysis at specific geographic locations, data centers, and regional cloud deployments. This allows companies to identify which geographic regions consume the most bandwidth and incur the highest fees, enabling localized optimization strategies such as caching content regionally, selecting optimal data center locations, and adjusting traffic routing to minimize bandwidth costs in high-fee regions while maintaining customer reach.
3Reliability
If companies increase redundancy and failover capabilities in their cloud deployments, then system reliability is improved, but resource consumption and associated fees increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic cost tracking that monitors resource consumption in real-time across redundant systems and failover configurations. This dynamic view allows companies to analyze the actual cost impact of redundancy and failover capabilities, identifying opportunities to right-size redundant resources, optimize failover timing, and balance reliability requirements against resource consumption costs, thereby maintaining system reliability while reducing unnecessary resource consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for modeling and analysis of commerce platform system infrastructure provided by cloud services provider systems to a commerce platform are described. The method may include receiving a cloud services provider spending report generated by a cloud service provider system, wherein the cloud services provider spending report comprises information indicative of costs of cloud services provider resource usage by the commerce platform system over a period of time, and receiving a service report for one or more systems of the commerce platform, wherein the service report comprises information indicative of execution of services of the one or more systems of the commerce platform over the period of time. A directed graph may then be generated that models costs of commerce platform system service usage at the cloud services provider system. The method may also include performing an analysis of the directed graph to attribute cloud service provider system cost information to the commerce platform system service usage at the cloud services provider system, and generating a report indicating cloud service provider system costs attributable services of the commerce platform system.