Getting a grip on Azure costs: how Azure Cost Management helps you save
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Microsoft Azure offers endless possibilities, but without tight control proper management can quickly add up to costs. Many organizations face unexpectedly high bills, often caused by unused resources, suboptimal licensing or inefficient workloads.

Fortunately, there is Azure Cost Management, the built-in Azure tool that provides insight into your expenses and shows concrete savings opportunities. In this blog, we explain how to use Azure Cost Management to get a grip on your Azure costs and share a practical roadmap to make structural savings.

What is Azure Cost Management?

Azure Cost Management is a suite of tools within the Microsoft Azure platform that helps organizations monitor costs, manage budgets and realize savings. Key functionalities:

  • Cost Analysis: Understanding which services generate the most costs and where savings can be made.
  • Budgets and alerts: Avoid surprises by setting spending limits.
  • Azure Advisor (Cost Optimization): Automatic recommendations to use resources more efficiently.
  • Reserved Instances and license management: Save up to 72% by making smart use of long-term contracts and existing licenses.

But mere insight is not enough-action is required. That's why we now dive into common cost leaks and a concrete roadmap to optimize your Azure spend.

Common cost leaks in Azure

Many organizations unwittingly overpay for Azure, and these are also monthly recurring costs. So this amount can add up quickly. Here are the most common causes:

  • Unused or underutilized resources: Sometimes there are still virtual machines (VMs), databases or storage services running that are barely used. This is literally throwing money away.
  • Wrong license or subscription choice: Are you paying unnecessarily for on-demand pricing when you would be much cheaper with Reserved Instances? Or do you have a more expensive license than you need?
  • Outbound data traffic (egress costs): Many organizations are shocked by the cost when data leaves Azure. This is a hidden cost that you need to manage smartly.
  • Storage costs that keep growing: Premium storage is fast, but you may need cold or archive storage. Many companies store data at too high a rate.

Do you recognize any of these pitfalls? Do your organization's Azure costs keep rising? Then it's time to take action. In our experience, savings can be made in many areas.

Cost optimization of Azure - a simple roadmap

To gain structural control of your Azure costs, follow this 5-step plan*:

Step 1: Map your costs with Azure Cost Management

Open Azure Cost Management + Billing in your Azure environment and view Cost Analysis. Identify the largest cost items. Are there any surprises among them? Dashboards allow you to structurally monitor costs and identify trends.

Step 2: Set budgets and alerts

Access Budgets in Azure Cost Management. Set maximum budgets per workload and set up alerts so that notifications will come when overruns occur. Make sure notifications land with the right people.

Step 3: Optimize resources and workloads

Scale unused VMs to a smaller size or disable them. Look at Auto Scaling options. Check out the Azure Advisor for optimization suggestions.

Step 4: Save with reserved instances and license management

Look at options to buy Reserved Instances (RIs) for workloads you use long-term. This can be up to 72% percent more affordable than on-demand pricing. Check to see if you can take advantage of Azure Hybrid Benefit, which uses existing licenses of Windows Server or SQL Server. If you need a lot of flexibility but still want to get a discount, Savings Plans may be an option.

Step 5: Conduct a monthly cost review

Schedule a regular monthly review. Evaluate which costs are higher than expected and discuss this with your IT (service provider) and finance team. With Azure Cost Management Reports, you can automate the cost review.

*Thisis a simplified roadmap. Would you prefer a comprehensive roadmap? Then contact us and we'll talk to you about possible savings on your Azure costs.

How Valid can help with Azure cost optimization

Managing Azure environments efficiently at the right cost requires structural attention and expertise. It is not a one-time action, but a continuous process to maintain the right balance between performance, flexibility and cost. We therefore often see that companies lack the internal knowledge and attention to deal with this properly. This is why we support companies with, among other things:

  • Azure Cost Reviews - Periodic analyses and savings recommendations.
  • FinOps approach - Financial and operational optimization of cloud costs.
  • Strategic licensing advice - Maximize cost savings through the right licensing and subscription choices.

In addition, Azure Cost Management is included as standard in our Azure Managed Cloud services. As a result, we continuously optimize costs without compromising on performance. By partnering with Valid, organizations not only get a grip on their Azure costs, but can also take maximum advantage of the cloud without financial surprises.

Read more about Azure Managed Cloud

Conclusion: Make Azure Cost Management a structural priority

Azure Cost Management is not a one-time action, but an ongoing process. By making smart use of the available tools and structurally optimizing your expenses, you can save a lot of costs as an organization without compromising on performance.  

Wondering how much you can save on your Azure costs? Let Valid take a no-obligation look with you!

Contact - free Azure cost analysis

This article was written by Ralph Zeegers, portfolio manager for Infrastructure at Valid.

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