> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.costgraph.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Alibaba Cloud

> Bring Alibaba Cloud cost into CostGraph, pulled by us or pushed by you

Alibaba Cloud bills each instance per day, so spend is attributed per instance, product and member account. Each charge says whether it is prepaid or pay-as-you-go, so CostGraph can point out steady pay-as-you-go instances that would cost less on a subscription.

CostGraph reads Alibaba Cloud as **FOCUS 1.2** records at a grain of day x instance x product.

## Choose how the data reaches us

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="CostGraph pulls it" icon="cloud-arrow-down">
    You supply read-only credentials and we call Alibaba Cloud once a day. Nothing to run.
  </Card>

  <Card title="You push it" icon="cloud-arrow-up">
    You send us FOCUS records over the API. Credentials never leave your infrastructure.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Before you begin

* In the RAM console, create a user with programmatic access and attach the **AliyunBSSReadOnlyAccess** policy.
* Create an AccessKey for that user and copy the AccessKey ID and secret. Alibaba Cloud displays the secret only at creation.
* Note whether the account is on the international site (alibabacloud.com) or the China site (aliyun.com).

## Let CostGraph pull

1. Open **Settings > Integrations** and pick **Alibaba Cloud**.
2. Name the connection and pick the tenant these charges belong to.
3. Enter the values you copied. The form lists what Alibaba Cloud needs and marks the
   optional ones.
4. Select **Connect**.

CostGraph verifies the credentials with a short fetch before saving, so a wrong
value or a missing permission fails while you are still on the form.

<Note>
  Credentials are encrypted at rest and used only to read billing data. Revoke the
  AccessKey in Alibaba Cloud at any time and the connection stops; nothing else is affected.
</Note>

## Push it yourself

Send the charges to CostGraph as FOCUS records instead. [Push FOCUS data](/costgraph/integrations/focus-push) covers the connection id,
the `focus:write` key, and the request shape.

## Run the exporter

Rather than build that request yourself, run our exporter. It reads Alibaba Cloud on a
schedule and pushes the records for you, wherever you want to run it: a container, a
Kubernetes `CronJob`, or a binary on a machine you already have.

```bash theme={null}
focus-exporter --provider alibaba --sink costgraph
```

Your Alibaba Cloud credential stays where you put it, and only the finished FOCUS records
reach CostGraph. [Run the exporter](/costgraph/integrations/exporter) covers the three
ways to run it and the variables it reads.

## What CostGraph does with it

Records land as raw billing rows, are normalised into line items, and roll up into
daily cost. From there Alibaba Cloud spend appears in Cost Overview and in anomaly
detection alongside every other provider.


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