Azure Budgets and Cost Management
Tags: budgets, azure, costmanagement, 100daysofcloud
Published: 2024-01-17 21:21:59

Navigating the transition from on-premises solutions to the Azure Cloud involves a strategic approach to managing costs effectively. Here's a concise guide to the essential steps and key terms:

### On-Prem Cloud vs Cloud and Evaluation:

- **Data Transfer Costs:**
   - Evaluate charges related to data movement between on-premises and Azure.

- **Licensing Changes:**
   - Assess how on-premises software licenses are impacted and explore Azure Hybrid Benefit for optimization.

- **Performance Monitoring and Optimization:**
   - Monitor both bills and system performance for a seamless transition.

- **Azure Advisor Recommendations:**
   - Leverage Azure Advisor for personalized cost-saving, performance, and availability recommendations.

- **Reserved Instances and Savings Plans:**
   - Consider reserved instances or savings plans for predictable workload cost savings.

- **Review Billing Details:**
   - Analyze detailed billing statements for a breakdown of costs by resource type and region.

- **Cost Allocation and Tagging:**
   - Implement cost allocation and tagging for accurate attribution of costs to departments or projects.

- **Review Azure Pricing Calculator:**
   - Periodically use the Azure Pricing Calculator to estimate costs for potential changes to Azure services.

### Three Important Services:

- **Azure Pricing Calculator:** Calculate Azure Services Cost
- **Azure Total Cost of Ownership Calculator:** Evaluate Azure Deployment Bills
- **Azure Advisor:** Optimize Azure efficiency through scaling down, etc.

[Microsoft Azure Cost Management & Budgets](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/costs/tutorial-acm-create-budgets)

## Common Cloud Concern: Cost

When planning a move to the cloud, cost is a common concern. Unlike Microsoft 365 with set costs based on license consumption, moving to any Cloud Provider requires careful consideration of various variables. For instance, deploying a Virtual Machine involves factors like storage tier, high availability needs, and scalability requirements.

## Azure Portal Method:

- Sign in to [Azure Portal](https://portal.azure.com).

![Azure Portal](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/mgav2z2dq5u434230jki.png)



- Search for "Cost Management and Billing."

![Cost Management and Billing](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/godyzvqhwko5ibn495vt.png)


- Select "Cost Management" from the menu.

![Cost Management](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9nfsx98duqror0oozdtt.png)


- Navigate to "Budgets" and click "Add."

![Budgets](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/iu61395o5cexnj7hc8gi.png)


- Fill in details, set a budget amount, configure alert conditions, and add recipients.

![budget amount, configure alert conditions, and add recipients](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/j3m7e7na48w062dl7ukz.png)


- Create the budget.

![budget](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/vihvhn1yyfmpjivjrp36.png)



Whether using Azure Portal or other methods like Azure PowerShell, effective budgeting and cost management are crucial for a successful and optimized transition to Azure Cloud.


## Powershell Method : 

### Install the Az module
`install-module -name Az`

### Connect to your Azure account
`Connect-AzAccount`

### Get information about the current Azure context
`Get-AzContext`

### Create a new Azure consumption budget
`New-AzConsumptionBudget -Amount 100 -Name TestPSBudget -Category Cost -StartDate 2024-01-17 -TimeGrain Monthly -EndDate 2024-01-30 -ContactEmail <Your EmailID> -NotificationKey Key1 -NotificationThreshold 0.8 -NotificationEnabled
`

**4 Ways to Optimize Azure Costs with Azure Cost Management and Related Tools**

Azure Cost Management is a powerful tool designed to help organizations optimize their cloud spending. Here are four ways to leverage Azure Cost Management and related tools for cost optimization:

### 1. Cost Analysis Report

The Cost Analysis report in Azure Cost Management allows for detailed analysis of organizational costs by segmenting them using Azure resource attributes. Key questions to answer with this report include:

- **Monthly Costs:** Evaluate costs for the current month, ensuring spending aligns with budgetary limits.
- **Anomalies Check:** Identify abnormal service usage or cost surges, ensuring costs remain within reasonable ranges.
- **Invoice Verification:** Compare the Azure bill against actual service usage, verifying billing accuracy and investigating significant changes.
- **Cost Allocation:** Understand how Azure costs should be distributed across departments, projects, or individuals.

### 2. Azure Budgets

Azure Budgets, a function within Azure Cost Management, allows setting budgets based on cost or usage. Regularly revisit budgets to track consumption and make necessary adjustments.

### 3. Azure Pricing Calculator

Used alongside Azure Cost Management, the Azure Pricing Calculator helps evaluate pricing for different combinations of Azure services. This is especially valuable when deploying new workloads or expanding existing ones.

### 4. Azure Advisor

Azure Advisor identifies opportunities for cost savings on Azure by highlighting:

- **Underutilized Resources:** Detect virtual machines with low CPU or network utilization, allowing for resizing or shutting down.
- **Reserved Instances (RIs):** Recommends purchasing RIs for consistently running VMs to save costs.
- **Unused Network Resources:** Flags unused network resources like ExpressRoute circuits, virtual network gateways, or public IPs.
- **Database Optimization:** Recommends right-sizing MariaDB, MySQL, or PostgreSQL instances for optimal database use.

### How to Enable Azure Cost Management

To enable Azure Cost Management for authorized users:

1. Access the Azure portal with an enterprise administrator account.
2. Navigate to Cost Management + Billing from the menu.
3. Click on Billing scopes and select your billing account.
4. In Settings, select Policies from the menu.
5. Identify the user and set the View charges option to On.

### Is Azure Cost Management Free?

Yes, Azure Cost Management is free for customers and partners of Azure to manage their Azure costs effectively.

Here are some important links to explore:

- [Documentation for creating and editing budgets with PowerShell](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/costs/tutorial-acm-create-budgets#create-and-edit-budgets-with-powershell)

- [Quick create budget template using Azure CLI](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/costs/quick-create-budget-template?tabs=CLI)