Creating a Go Tool for Monitoring Cloud Costs

Introduction
Prerequisites
Setup
Creating the Go Tool
Usage
Conclusion

Introduction

In this tutorial, we will create a Go tool for monitoring cloud costs. Cloud services have become an essential part of modern applications, and keeping track of the costs associated with these services is crucial. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a Go tool that fetches cost information from a cloud provider and provides insights into your cloud spending.

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, you should have a basic understanding of Go programming language concepts. Familiarity with cloud services and API usage will also be helpful. In addition, you will need to have the following software installed on your system:

Go (version 1.11 or above)
An active account with a cloud provider (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud)

Setup

Before we start creating the Go tool, we need to set up API access to the cloud provider’s cost information. Each cloud provider has its own way of authenticating and accessing the cost data. Please refer to the documentation of your cloud provider to obtain the necessary credentials and API access.

Once you have the API access configured, we can proceed to create our Go tool.

Creating the Go Tool

Start by creating a new directory for our Go tool:

 $ mkdir cloud-cost-monitor
 $ cd cloud-cost-monitor

Initialize a Go module:

 $ go mod init github.com/your-username/cloud-cost-monitor

Create a new Go file named main.go:
```
 $ touch main.go
```

Open main.go in your preferred text editor and let’s start coding.

 package main
    
 import (
 	"fmt"
 	"log"
 )
    
 func main() {
 	fmt.Println("Welcome to Cloud Cost Monitor")
    
 	// TODO: Add code to fetch cloud cost information
    
 	// TODO: Add code to process and display the cost data
 }

Now, let’s add code to fetch the cloud cost information. In this example, let’s assume we are using the AWS Cost Explorer API. Add the following code inside the main function:

 client := createCostExplorerClient()
    
 input := &costexplorer.GetCostAndUsageInput{
 	Granularity: aws.String("MONTHLY"),
 	Metrics:     []*string{aws.String("UnblendedCost")},
 	TimePeriod: &costexplorer.DateInterval{
 		Start: aws.String("2022-01-01"),
 		End:   aws.String("2022-01-31"),
 	},
 }
    
 result, err := client.GetCostAndUsage(input)
 if err != nil {
 	log.Fatal("Error fetching cost data:", err)
 }
    
 // TODO: Process and display the cost data

Next, let’s add code to process and display the cost data. Add the following code after the previous block:

 fmt.Println("Cost Data:")
 for _, res := range result.ResultsByTime {
 	fmt.Println("Period:", *res.TimePeriod.Start, "-", *res.TimePeriod.End)
 	fmt.Println("Cost:", *res.Total["UnblendedCost"].Amount)
 	fmt.Println("---")
 }

To compile and run our Go tool, use the following command:
```
 $ go run main.go
```
Congratulations! You have created a Go tool that fetches and displays cloud cost information.

Usage

To customize the behavior of the Go tool, you can modify the API parameters and the date range in the code. Additionally, you can enhance the tool by adding support for other cloud providers’ APIs or extra functionality like analyzing trends, creating charts, or sending notifications.

Here are some potential improvements:

Accept command-line arguments or configuration files for API credentials and parameters.
Implement support for other cloud providers’ cost APIs such as Google Cloud or Azure.
Analyze the cost data to identify trends and anomalies.
Generate reports or charts to visualize the cost data.
Implement notifications or alerts when cost thresholds are exceeded.

Feel free to explore and modify the code to suit your specific requirements and use cases.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have created a Go tool for monitoring cloud costs. We learned how to fetch cost information from a cloud provider using their API and displayed the data using Go’s standard output. We also discussed potential improvements and enhancements that can be made to the tool.

Monitoring cloud costs is crucial for managing expenses and optimizing resource usage. By developing this Go tool, you have acquired a practical skill that can help you track and analyze cloud spending efficiently.

Happy coding!

Published: 5 October 2022