# Dell cost report Dell storage solutions support enterprise workloads that require scalable storage, organized capacity management, and data protection across cloud environments. Dell resources can be structured into clusters, storage pools, and protection domains, each serving a different role in managing storage capacity and protecting business data. The cloud infrastructure supporting these deployments generates costs through storage, compute, networking, and data movement services. As Dell storage environments expand across AWS, Azure, and GCP, it can become difficult to determine which storage resources are responsible for changes in cloud spending. CloudSpend associates cloud billing data with Dell resources using predefined Dell tags. This gives you a way to examine storage costs according to the logical structure of your Dell environment, identify the resources contributing to spending, and make better decisions about storage allocation and protection. ## What is Dell cost management? Dell cost management is the process of tracking, analyzing, and optimizing cloud expenses associated with Dell storage resources. CloudSpend uses Dell-specific tags to connect infrastructure costs with logical storage entities. This empowers storage teams to analyze spending at the cluster, storage pool, and protection domain levels instead of relying only on the cloud providers' billing categories. Effective Dell cost management involves monitoring storage spending, understanding how capacity is distributed across storage pools, evaluating protection-related costs, and identifying changes in resource consumption that may affect overall cloud spending. It also provides a basis for allocating storage costs across different workloads and environments. By associating costs with specific Dell resources, teams can better understand which storage deployments require the most infrastructure resources and where optimization may be appropriate. ## How does CloudSpend manage Dell costs in a multi-cloud environment? CloudSpend connects Dell resource information with cloud billing data across [AWS](https://www.manageengine.com/cloudspend/help/aws-integrate.html), [Azure](https://www.manageengine.com/cloudspend/help/azure-integrate.html), and [GCP](https://www.manageengine.com/cloudspend/help/gcp-integration.html). This empowers you to view storage costs using the same Dell-specific concepts, even when the underlying cloud billing structures differ. Instead of manually tracing cloud charges back to individual storage deployments, employ CloudSpend, which uses the configured Dell tags to associate costs with their corresponding storage resources. You can then examine spending across clusters, storage pools, and protection domains alongside dimensions such as accounts, subscriptions, projects, regions, and services. This is particularly useful when a Dell deployment spans multiple cloud environments. You can compare storage spending between environments and investigate whether differences are related to resource distribution, capacity requirements, protection activity, or supporting cloud services. You can also examine changes in storage usage through cost trends and [anomaly detection](https://www.manageengine.com/cloudspend/help/anomaly-report.html). For example, an increase in consumption within a storage pool can result in higher infrastructure costs. Examining the associated tagged resources helps you identify where the change occurred and provides context for further investigation. [Budgets and alerts](https://www.manageengine.com/cloudspend/help/budget.html) can be used to monitor Dell-related spending against expected thresholds. This gives storage and cloud teams an opportunity to investigate unusual spending before it becomes a larger cost issue. ## Dell tagging entities for cost allocation CloudSpend uses the following entities to tag and track your Dell resources across AWS, Azure, and GCP environments. | Report category | Report display name | Description | AWS and Azure tag key | GCP tag key | Tag value | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Dell | Dell Cluster ID | The Dell cluster ID | *dell:cluster-id* | *dell-cluster-id* | ** | | Dell | Dell Storage Pool | The Dell storage pool | *dell:storage-pool* | *dell-storage-pool* | ** | | Dell | Dell Protection Domain | The Dell protection domain | *dell:protection-domain* | *dell-protection-domain* | ** | These tagging entities enable CloudSpend to associate cloud costs with the different logical components of your Dell storage environment. ## How CloudSpend uses Dell tags for cost tracking CloudSpend uses the above entities to tag and track your Dell resources across AWS, Azure, and GCP environments. Each entity provides a different level of context for understanding where storage-related costs are being generated. The *Dell Cluster ID* identifies the Dell cluster associated with the resource. CloudSpend uses *dell:cluster-id* in AWS and Azure and *dell-cluster-id* in GCP to attribute costs to the relevant cluster. This provides a deployment-level view of storage spending and helps you compare costs between different Dell clusters. The *Dell Storage Pool* identifies the storage pool associated with the resource. CloudSpend uses *dell:storage-pool* in AWS and Azure and *dell-storage-pool* in GCP to group the associated costs. This enables you to examine spending based on how storage capacity is organized and identify pools that contribute more significantly to overall costs. The *Dell Protection Domain* identifies a logical group associated with data protection. CloudSpend uses *dell:protection-domain* in AWS and Azure and *dell-protection-domain* in GCP to associate costs with the relevant protection domain. This provides visibility into the infrastructure costs associated with protected storage resources. Together, these entities enable you to examine Dell costs at different levels of the storage environment. A cluster can provide a broader view of deployment costs, while storage pools and protection domains provide more focused information for investigating capacity and protection spending. The different tag keys used by GCP are also accounted for when CloudSpend identifies Dell resources. ## Benefits of the Dell cost report Here are some of the key benefits of the Dell cost report: - Provides a consolidated view of Dell-related cloud costs across AWS, Azure, and GCP. - Enables cost analysis at the cluster, storage pool, and protection domain levels. - Identifies storage pools with significant infrastructure spending. - Provides greater visibility into costs associated with protected storage resources. - Improves storage cost attribution across cloud environments and workloads. - Identifies changes in storage consumption and protection spending. - Supports proactive cost monitoring through budgets, alerts, and cost trends. - Provides insights that can support storage allocation and infrastructure optimization decisions. ## Interpreting the Dell cost report With the Dell cost report, you get a consolidated view of the spending associated with your Dell storage resources across AWS, Azure, and GCP environments. You can use the report to understand spending at different levels of the storage environment. Cluster-level analysis provides an overview of individual Dell deployments, while storage pool and protection domain information helps you narrow the investigation to specific areas of storage capacity and data protection. Follow these steps to view the report: 1. Log in to CloudSpend and go to **Reports**. 2. Select the **Dell cost report**. 3. Use filters to narrow it down by the account, region, or resource. 4. Select the required account to view the *Spend Analysis* dashboard. ## Spend Analysis in the Dell cost report The [Spend Analysis](https://www.manageengine.com/cloudspend/help/cost-centers-overview.html#Cost_Analytics) view helps you examine changes in Dell storage spending and understand the factors contributing to those changes. You can view the total cost for the selected period and compare spending across accounts, subscriptions, projects, or other available cloud dimensions. Cost trends show whether Dell-related spending is stable, increasing, or changing during a particular period. The service and resource breakdowns provide another level of detail by showing which underlying cloud services contribute to the cost. This is useful when Dell storage resources depend on multiple cloud services and the resulting charges are distributed across different billing components. Dell-specific tags enable you to relate these changes back to the storage environment. You can examine cluster costs to identify deployments with higher spending, compare storage pools to understand where capacity-related costs are concentrated, and review protection domains when investigating costs associated with protected resources. For example, you can investigate an unexpected increase in a storage pool alongside its resource and service costs to determine whether the change is associated with increased storage consumption or another supporting infrastructure component. The combination of cost trends, resource-level information, and Dell tagging entities helps storage teams move from identifying a cost change to understanding which part of the storage environment requires attention. ## Resource Explorer in the Dell cost report The [Resource Explorer](https://www.manageengine.com/cloudspend/help/resource-explorer.html) view provides a detailed way to examine Dell-related costs across the different dimensions available in your cloud environment. You can explore spending by accounts, subscriptions, projects, regions, services, resources, resource groups, and tags. These views enable you to compare storage costs across environments and narrow the analysis to a particular deployment or workload. Dell-specific tags provide additional context when you're exploring the resources. The *Dell Cluster ID* can be used to examine costs associated with an individual Dell cluster. The *Dell Storage Pool* tag enables you to investigate how costs are distributed across storage capacity groups. The *Dell Protection Domain* tag provides a way to isolate costs associated with protected storage resources. You can apply filters to focus the analysis on specific clusters, storage pools, protection domains, regions, or cloud environments. This is useful when you're investigating a particular cost increase or comparing similar Dell deployments. Resource Explorer therefore complements the broader Spend Analysis view by providing a more detailed way to attribute Dell storage costs. It helps storage and cloud teams understand how spending is distributed across the storage environment and identify specific areas where further investigation or optimization may be required.