Final answer:
An AWS Cloud Practitioner should use AWS Cost Explorer to view and manage AWS costs and usage over time. It offers detailed analyses, historical data, trends, and forecasting capabilities specific to cost management.
Step-by-step explanation:
If a Cloud Practitioner needs to view and manage AWS costs and usage over time, the tool that should be used is AWS Cost Explorer. This service enables you to visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time. With AWS Cost Explorer, you can create custom reports that analyze cost and usage data, both at a high level (e.g., total costs across all services) and for highly specific requests (e.g., costs associated with a particular service in a specific region). This tool provides an interactive interface where one can view historical data to track trends and to forecast future costs. It can also provide recommendations for ways to save on costs, based on your usage patterns.
Other AWS services that were mentioned, like AWS CloudTrail, are for tracking user activity and API usage, whereas AWS Trusted Advisor provides recommendations for improving your AWS environment and AWS Budgets is for setting custom budgets to monitor cost and usage against. However, AWS Cost Explorer is the specialized tool designed for in-depth cost analysis and management over time, making it the ideal choice for a Cloud Practitioner's needs in this scenario.