Build Hours

Build Hours measure the compute Vantage uses to process your cost and usage data when you customize how that data is organized with Virtual Tags. For MSP partners, Build Hours also cover the SQL billing rules applied to Managed Accounts, the customer accounts an MSP provisions and administers. Accounts that use Access Policies also consume Build Hours for the extra Forecast and Anomaly runs those policies require. They give you visibility into the processing footprint of that configuration. Build Hours are a usage metric, not a direct dollar charge in the product. Your subscription covers platform access. Build Hours help you and your account team understand how much processing your Virtual Tags, billing rules, and Access Policies require.

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Overview

Vantage reports two kinds of Build Hours. They measure different processing steps and are shown as separate series.

• Virtual Tag hours: The time spent applying Virtual Tags. Virtual Tags let you assign custom tag values to your cloud costs based on filters, business logic, and time frames.
• Billing Rule hours: The time spent applying line-item billing rules on a Managed Account. Line-item rules are Adjustment and Exclusion rules, and custom SQL UPDATE and DELETE rules. Billing Rule hours apply only to MSP partners. The Management Account, the MSP’s own central administrative account, does not receive them.

You can view your usage in the product at Settings > Tags > Build Hours. Build Hours are shown for the account you are currently viewing, so to see a Managed Account’s Billing Rule hours, open that Managed Account’s settings.

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When Build Hours Are Recorded

Vantage records Build Hours when a processing run completes successfully. Runs that don’t complete successfully aren’t counted.

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Virtual Tag Hours

Virtual Tag hours are recorded whenever Vantage processes cost data and runs the tagging step, including:

• Scheduled imports, as new billing data arrives from your connected providers.
• Virtual Tag configuration changes, when you create, update, or delete a Virtual Tag or change its values, filters, or time frames.
• Downstream reprocessing, when another configuration change causes the tagging step to run again as part of a full reprocess.

Each successful processing run that includes tagging produces one measurement. Runs with no tagging work aren’t counted.

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Billing Rule Hours

Billing Rule hours are recorded on a Managed Account when the transform step runs and that account has line-item billing rules applied. This includes:

• Scheduled imports, as new billing data arrives for a Managed Account that already has line-item rules.
• Rule changes, when you create or edit an Adjustment rule, an Exclusion rule, or a custom SQL UPDATE or DELETE rule.
• Assignment changes, when you assign or unassign those rules on a Managed Account.

Charge rules, Credit rules, and SQL INSERT rules, including Monthly Insert rules, do not generate Billing Rule hours on their own.

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Access Policy Hours

Accounts using Access Policies consume Build Hours when Vantage generates Forecasts and Anomalies for a policy combination. There is no cost to create a policy. Vantage generates a separate set of Forecasts and Anomalies for each unique combination of policies, on every Cost Report that has Forecasts and Anomaly Detection turned on. Those runs are in addition to the standard Forecast and Anomalies, which cover costs with no Access Policy applied. The amount for each Cost Report depends on your data retention, the number of services in the report, and the number of unique Access Policy combinations in the account. As an estimate, an average-size enterprise customer adds 1 Build Hour per enabled Cost Report per month for each combination of Access Policies assigned to teams. Turning Forecasts or Anomaly Detection off for a workspace, or for an individual Cost Report, stops that processing and reduces the Build Hours it consumes. Previewing a policy does not consume Build Hours.

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How Build Hours Are Calculated

Vantage measures processing time in milliseconds. 3,600,000 is the number of milliseconds in an hour (1,000 ms × 60 seconds × 60 minutes).

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Virtual Tag Hours

One Virtual Tag hour equals one hour of processing time spent in the tagging step. Vantage adds up the time each tagging task in a run takes, then converts that total to hours: $$\text{Virtual Tag hours} = \frac{\text{tagging processing time (ms)}}{3{,}600{,}000}$$ Vantage tags many batches of your cost data at the same time, so the processing time recorded for a run can be greater than the time that elapsed on the clock while it ran.

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Billing Rule Hours

Billing Rule hours use the same millisecond total for the transform step, then apply a cost weight of 0.35. Transform processing runs on lighter infrastructure than tagging, so one hour of transform time counts as 0.35 Build Hours: $$\text{Billing Rule hours} = \frac{\text{transform processing time (ms)} \times 0.35}{3{,}600{,}000}$$ Two hours of transform time show as 0.7 Billing Rule hours. Transform work also runs many batches at once, so the recorded time can be greater than the time that elapsed on the clock. The two series stay separate. Virtual Tag hours and Billing Rule hours measure different processing steps. Build Hours are measured per account. Parent and Managed Accounts are tracked separately.

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What Drives Your Usage

Virtual Tag hours and Billing Rule hours increase when you have more cost and usage data to process, such as more accounts, providers, or billing periods. Access Policy hours increase with data retention, the number of services in a Cost Report, and the number of unique Access Policy combinations in the account.

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Virtual Tag Hours

Your Virtual Tag hours generally increase when you:

• Maintain more Virtual Tag configurations or values.
• Change Virtual Tags frequently, since each change that has a backfill period triggers reprocessing.
• Use complex filters or time-bound tag values that require more matching work.

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Billing Rule Hours

Your Billing Rule hours generally increase when you:

• Assign more line-item billing rules to Managed Accounts.
• Change those rules often, since each save can restart reprocessing.
• Leave a billing rule’s start date empty, or set it far back, so Vantage reprocesses more history.

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View Your Build Hours

The tab has two parts:

• Daily Build Hours over the last 90 days: A chart of how many Build Hours each day’s processing used. Hover over any point to see that day’s exact total. In the example above, June 22 used 4.38 Build Hours.
• Usage Summary: A table of rolling totals for the last 7, 15, 30, 60, and 90 days. The Hours column is Virtual Tag hours, and Daily Avg is that total divided by the number of days in the window. In the example above, this account used 25.0 Build Hours over the last 7 days (a 3.57 daily average) and 181.4 over the full 90 days.

The example above shows an account with Virtual Tag hours only. When an account also has Billing Rule hours, the chart shows two series, Virtual Tags and Billing Rules, with a legend, and hovering over a day shows both values. The Usage Summary adds a Billing Rule Hours column and renames Hours to Virtual Tag Hours. Daily Avg remains the Virtual Tag total for that window divided by the number of days. Comparing a shorter window’s daily average to the 90-day average is a quick way to see which direction your Virtual Tag usage is trending. A higher recent average means those hours are climbing, often because you’ve been changing Virtual Tags, changing line-item billing rules, or backfilling more history than usual.

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Frequently Asked Questions