Thread by @QuinnyPig

So @awscloud likes to make a big deal about "the first launch of #reInvent." Let's do something else: the last launch of #requinnvent. That's right, I'm dumb enough to launch a product during #reInvent.

Let's start by talking about cost management SaaS tools. A thread...

I've been on record for a while as saying that they suck, because they do. "Percent of your @awscloud bill" pricing, they try to do way too much (you don't use 90% of it), and they're all trying to be Expensive and Complicated Cost Explorer.

Worst of all, a tool can't replace a person in analyzing your AWS costs. There's no API for business insight, and attempting to install one into your staff apparently violates a bunch of laws.

But people don't operate in a vacuum.

Here at the Duckbill Group, we don't analyze @awscloud bills via PDF and dead-reckoning; we've built a suite of internal power tools. And somewhere along the way, we figured they might be helpful for others as well.

So today we're launching these internal power tools as a SaaS product, called DuckTools. They're a suite of tools that augment people instead of replacing them. These are focused tools that do specific things, and they do them very well.

"Corey is this another one of your 'Twitter for Pets' gags?" That's a very fair question. If it is, it's *incredibly* elaborate. Check out DuckTools.com. The two apps available at launch are up and working with demo videos.

For the first, @awscloud Savings Plans are great--but how do you handle figuring out what commit level makes sense for your environment? Meet the Savings Plan Calculator–a scenario modeling tool to answer that exact question and overcome the AWS console's limitations.

We reverse engineered how Savings Plans work and solved for the most aggravating limitations today–then built a tool to let you do scenario modeling, apply visualizations, and answer a whole host of "what if we did X" style questions.

Y'know... the kinds of questions business people might ask before green-lighting a multi-million dollar expense. The current AWS Savings Plan calculator's response to this is "lol I dunno."

For our second tool, let's say you have a bunch of RIs that are expiring in a week. How much of a savings plan commit should you purchase? AWS's approach is "run for another week at on-demand pricing and then we'll have a recommendation for you." How Customer Obsessed of them.

The DuckTools RI Migrator (DRIM is a better name than Systems Manager Session Manager by light-years) tells you what to buy so you can queue the purchase to take effect at the right moment without wasting money. Sounds simple, but it *DOESN'T EXIST.*

So there you have it--a glimpse into what @kkutcha built immediately after seeing my original python scripts, shrieking, removing my GitHub access, and starting over from scratch.

Note that DuckTools.com has a form for a conversation with us rather than a "pay with credit card and start using it immediately." We want to do this *right*. What we've built works for us and our customers--but we want to talk to you before asking for access.

To learn more, my homage-to-@jeffbarr launch blog post is at ducktools.com/blog/ducktools….