Background
RealTheory calculates and displays cost data for Kubernetes objects by analyzing resource usage over time. Cost data is derived from collected metrics and requires sufficient runtime and historical context to produce accurate results.
Because of this, cost data may not always be immediately available for every object in a cluster or for every selected time range.
Common Reasons Cost Data May Be Missing
Cost data may not appear for an object if one or more of the following apply:
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The object is short-lived
Objects that run only briefly—such as CronJobs, Jobs, or rapidly scaling workloads—might terminate before enough data is collected to display in the cost chart. -
The object was recently created
Newly created objects require time to accumulate metrics. Cost data will appear after the object has been running long enough for RealTheory to observe and aggregate usage. -
The selected time range is too broad
If the object has not been running for an appropriate amount of time to generate a bar on the chart (a day for the 7 Days and 31 Days charts, an hour on the 24 hour chart), cost data might not appear. Selecting a shorter time range that overlaps with the object’s runtime may reveal cost data. -
Cost tracking was recently enabled for the cluster
In environments that are not natively integrated with RealTheory—such as private data centers, currently unsupported cloud providers, or bare metal servers—cost data is not available until a rate card is created and applied to the cluster. Cost data is not retroactive, so objects will only show cost information for usage collected after cost tracking is enabled.
Solution
In these scenarios, cost data will either:
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Appear automatically after sufficient runtime and data collection, or
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Be visible only for shorter time ranges that align with when the object was running, or
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Appear only after cost tracking is enabled for the cluster (for example, after a rate card is created and applied in non-natively integrated environments), or
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Not show at the object level if the object does not run long enough to generate sufficient data for visualization
Note: The object costs will still be included in cost calculations for higher-level objects such as deployments, namespaces, and clusters.
No action is required unless cost data remains missing for long-lived objects well after cost tracking has been enabled.