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# Investigation for CryoCloud in applying AWS credits

> A recurring request from the Cryocloud community is can we manage donated AWS credits. 
> 
> If someone has 'credits' can we, perhaps with some AWS facilitation, apply those to a billing account we manage?
> 
> Can we split those credits into multiple billing accounts?
> 
> I need guidance on what is easy, what is hard, what is possible, and what is impossible when it comes to accepting and managing donated AWS credits.

## Terminology

- AWS organization: a grouping of one management account and of member accounts.
- Standalone account: an account not part of an AWS organization.
- Credits / one or more credit bundles: saying "credits" is a big ambigious, as it could refer to one or more "bundles of credit". A "bundle of credit" is this text's terminology for credit that can be applied all at once or not at all to one account.
- To redeem a bundle of credit: to use a code to apply a bundle of credit to a standalone account, member account, or an organization's management account.
- To transfer a bundle of credit: to transfer a bundle of credit fro one account to another

## Investigation

A bundle of credit can be redeemed to an account, and possibly transfered by contacting support to another account. When a bundle of credit is tied to a standalone account or member account, it gets used up over time in that account. If a bundle of credit is tied to a management account in an organization of accounts, member accounts can be setup to make use of the credits.

There are a lot of details related to changes in the middle of a month if a standalone account joins an organization.

## Attempting more direct answers

### If someone has 'credits' can we, perhaps with some AWS facilitation, apply those to a billing account we manage?

- If a bundle of credit is available to be redeemable via a code, I think we can apply that with ease to a specific account we manage without involvement of AWS support.
- If a community has a credit bundle already redeemed/applied in another AWS account, a transfer can be attempted by contacting AWS support.

### Can we split those credits into multiple billing accounts?

No. You can't _split_ a credit bundle as it can only be redeemed/applied to a single account. But, if that account is a management account in an organization, the redeemed credits of the management account can be used accross the organization's member accounts configured to be part of credit sharing.

### I need guidance on what is easy, what is hard, what is possible, and what is impossible when it comes to accepting and managing donated AWS credits.

**Sharing credit by separate credit bundles**

If a community has _separate bundles of credits_, they can be applied separately, and in such way be spread accross accounts. This would be trivial I think.

**Sharing a credit bundle within 2i2c's AWS organization**

CryoCloud is part of a 2i2c managed AWS organization currently. I think its possible to have a bundle of credit be applied to 2i2c's management account, and then have all of the management accounts credit bundles be shared across a selection of accounts, for example cryocloud and another part of 2i2c's managed AWS organization. This likely won't scale if we have multiple credit bundles to be shared between different sets of member accounts, but currently we have no credit bundles applied to the management account.

To conclude, this is probably easy but not scalable.

**Sharing a credit bundle within an external AWS organization**

CryoCloud's account, currently a member account of 2i2c's organization, could be _transferred to an AWS organization not managed by 2i2c_. Then they could configure credits can be shared between the external organization's member accounts.

Doing this is a notable change though. We'd stop paying their bills from some time to another. I think its doable, but shifts complexity and responsibility of cloud billing management to cryocloud who needs to embrace it.

To conclude, this is probably a one time change for us that is in between easy and hard, but it could be hard for the community as they need to also setup a AWS organization etc and transfer other accounts to it and do cloud billing etc.

## References

- [AWS docs on applying AWS credits](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/useconsolidatedbilling-credits.html#selecting-credits-to-apply)
- [AWS docs on consolidated billing for AWS orgs](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/consolidated-billing.html)
