Azure cost management tools to control cloud spend

Here’s a breakdown of some Azure cost management tools that IT teams can use to avoid unwanted surprises on their monthly bills.

Azure Pricing Calculator

Admins can use the Azure Pricing Calculator to get real-time cost estimates based on the services they use. Users can select a specific product, e.g. B. virtual machines, Azure Databricks or Azure Kubernetes Service and enter their unique configurations. Based on this information, the calculator provides an upfront and monthly cost estimate for each service. The Azure Pricing Calculator is free to use and allows customers to plan expenses to stay within budget.

Microsoft Expense Management

This is a free suite of tools for managing and optimizing Azure costs. It provides cost and usage information across the platform. Tools in Microsoft Cost Management include the following:

• Azure cost analysis. The cost analysis tool contains a variety of data and filters to help users understand their cumulative costs for the current month, their projected costs for a specific time period, and the costs associated with specific Azure services or resources. Pivot or donut charts show the smallest to largest expenses for the month. This tool provides users with an overall view of their spending in a cloud deployment.
• Azure cost alerts. Alerts are automatically generated when users reach certain usage or cost thresholds. There are three types of notifications: budget notifications, credit notifications, and departmental expense notifications. A budget alert occurs when spending meets or exceeds a predefined amount based on resource usage or cost. A credit alert is triggered when an Azure prepayment – as specified in an Azure Enterprise Agreement – has been used up. Department spend alerts occur when users reach a certain spending threshold and trigger an email notification to the department owner. These alerts help admins stay on track and serve as helpful reminders.
• Azure budgets. This tool holds organizations accountable for staying within their specific cloud budget. Administrators can adjust budgets based on actual or projected costs. When users meet or exceed a threshold, Azure sends an alert. That doesn’t stop resource consumption. Administrators set up these limits through Cost Management.

Azure consultant

Underutilized resources can weigh on cloud finances. Azure Advisor identifies idle resources and wasteful cloud spend. To access this service, sign in to the Azure portal and select Advisor from any page. From the Advisor dashboard, select the Costs tab. By shutting down or reducing unnecessary resources, organizations can get one step closer to optimizing their cloud spend.