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Region Analysis

Region Analysis shows how your AWS spending is distributed across geographic regions, helping you identify cost concentration, redundancy overhead, and opportunities to consolidate workloads in fewer regions.

Accessing Region Analysis​

From the Cost Dashboard, click on the Top Regions card, or navigate to the Region Analysis tab within the Cost Analysis page.

Why Region Analysis Matters​

AWS pricing varies by region -- sometimes significantly. The same EC2 instance type can cost 10-25% more in one region versus another. Understanding your regional cost distribution helps you:

  • Identify expensive regions -- Are you running workloads in premium-priced regions when a cheaper alternative would suffice?
  • Spot unnecessary redundancy -- Multi-region deployments increase availability but also increase cost. Ensure every region serves a purpose.
  • Detect accidental deployments -- Resources accidentally launched in unintended regions are a common source of waste.
  • Plan capacity decisions -- Understand where your workloads are concentrated to make informed scaling and pricing decisions.

What You See​

Regional Cost Map​

A visual representation of your spending across AWS regions. Regions with higher spend are emphasised, making it immediately clear where your infrastructure is concentrated.

Region Cost Table​

A detailed table breaking down costs per region:

ColumnDescription
RegionAWS region code and name (e.g., eu-west-2 -- Europe (London))
Current CostTotal spend in this region for the selected period
Previous CostSpend for the equivalent previous period
ChangePercentage change between periods
% of TotalThis region's share of your total AWS spend
Top ServiceThe highest-cost service in this region
Resource CountNumber of active resources discovered in this region

Region Trend Charts​

Click on any region to expand a trend view showing:

  • Daily or monthly spend over the selected time period
  • Trend direction indicator
  • Service breakdown within that specific region

Common Patterns​

Single-Region Concentration​

If one region accounts for the vast majority of your spend, this is typically expected for organisations that deploy primarily in a single region. However, consider:

  • Disaster recovery requirements -- Do you need multi-region failover?
  • Latency requirements -- Are your users concentrated in a single geographic area?
  • Pricing optimisation -- Is your primary region the most cost-effective option for your workload?
tip

If you are deploying new workloads and do not have a specific region requirement, compare pricing across regions for your primary instance types. Regions like us-east-1 (N. Virginia) and us-west-2 (Oregon) are typically among the lowest-cost options.

Multi-Region Deployments​

Organisations running across multiple regions should look for:

  • Balanced distribution -- Is spend proportional to the workload in each region?
  • Data transfer costs -- Cross-region data transfer can be expensive. See Service Breakdown for data transfer details.
  • Under-utilised secondary regions -- If a disaster recovery region is running at full capacity cost but rarely used, consider scaling it down and relying on rapid scaling when needed.

Global Services​

Some AWS services are global and their costs appear under us-east-1 (N. Virginia) regardless of where they are used:

  • CloudFront -- Global CDN, billed in us-east-1
  • Route 53 -- Global DNS, billed in us-east-1
  • IAM -- Global service, no direct cost but related activities appear in us-east-1
  • WAF -- Global WAF rules attached to CloudFront appear in us-east-1
info

A spike in us-east-1 costs does not necessarily mean you have resources deployed there. Check whether the increase is due to global services like CloudFront or Route 53 before investigating further.

Regional Pricing Differences​

AWS pricing varies across regions. Key factors:

FactorImpact
Base instance pricingCan differ by 10-25% across regions
Data transferCross-region transfer incurs per-GB charges; intra-region transfer is often free or cheaper
StorageS3 and EBS pricing varies slightly by region
Service availabilityNot all services or instance types are available in every region, potentially forcing the use of more expensive alternatives

Example: EC2 Pricing Variance​

A m5.xlarge instance might cost:

  • us-east-1: $0.192/hour
  • eu-west-1: $0.214/hour (11% more)
  • ap-southeast-1: $0.228/hour (19% more)

For workloads running 24/7, a 19% price difference translates to hundreds of dollars per instance per year.

Optimisation Strategies​

Consolidate Where Possible​

If you have resources scattered across many regions without clear requirements, consolidating into fewer regions can reduce:

  • Data transfer costs between regions
  • Operational overhead of managing multi-region infrastructure
  • The blast radius of configuration errors

Right-Region Selection​

For new deployments, choose regions based on:

  1. User proximity -- Deploy close to your users for latency
  2. Compliance requirements -- Data residency regulations may dictate region choices
  3. Pricing -- All else being equal, prefer lower-cost regions
  4. Service availability -- Ensure the AWS services you need are available in the region

Cross-Region Data Transfer Reduction​

If cross-region data transfer is a significant cost line item:

  • Use CloudFront to cache content at edge locations instead of serving directly from origin regions
  • Consider replicating data to the consuming region rather than transferring on every request
  • Use VPC peering or Transit Gateway for more efficient inter-region connectivity

Integration with Architecture Advisor​

Regional cost data is correlated with Guardian Pro's Architecture Advisor. The Risk Radar may identify:

  • AZ Concentration Risk -- Workloads concentrated in a single Availability Zone within a region
  • Missing Redundancy -- Single-region deployments without disaster recovery coverage
  • Network Topology Gaps -- Suboptimal networking configurations that increase data transfer costs

Next Steps​