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AWS FinOps Field Notes: Automating Orphaned EBS & Infrastructure Cleanup

#aws #python #finops #devops

While auditing cloud infrastructure costs this week, recurring configuration gaps continue to quietly inflate monthly bills.

Field Insight: The Hidden Cost Trap

Unattached Elastic IPs bill $0.005/hour per IPv4 address in every region, $3.65/month ($43.80/year) per idle IP for zero bytes routed. An environment with 40 forgotten dev and staging Elastic IPs leaks $146/month ($1,752/year).

Automated Detection: Auditing Detached EBS Volumes with Boto3 

import boto3

def audit_unattached_ebs(region='us-east-1'):
    ec2 = boto3.client('ec2', region_name=region)
    volumes = ec2.describe_volumes(
        Filters=[{'Name': 'status', 'Values': ['available']}]
    ).get('Volumes', [])

    print(f"[{region}] Found {len(volumes)} unattached volume(s):")
    for vol in volumes:
        print(f" - {vol['VolumeId']} | {vol['Size']} GiB ({vol['VolumeType']})")
    return volumes

if __name__ == '__main__':
    audit_unattached_ebs()
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