Oracle Cloud Cost Tuning

Overview

Track OCI spending programmatically using the Usage API and set up budget alerts before Universal Credits run out unexpectedly. OCI pricing varies by shape, region, and commitment level, and the Cost Analysis tool in the Console is buried and confusing. This skill uses the Usage API to query spend by compartment, service, and shape, creates budgets with alert rules, and covers optimization strategies including Always Free tier resources, preemptible instances, and reserved capacity.

Purpose: Get visibility into OCI spending through code, set proactive budget alerts, and identify cost optimization opportunities.

Prerequisites

• OCI tenancy with an API signing key in ~/.oci/config
• Python 3.8+ with pip install oci
• Tenancy OCID (root compartment) for tenancy-wide cost queries
• IAM policy granting read usage-reports in the tenancy
• Notification topic OCID for budget alert delivery (see oraclecloud-observability)

Instructions

Step 1: Query Usage with the Usage API