Azure Cloud Cost Optimization.

Azure cloud cost optimization delivers a smarter way to predict, purchase and manage Azure cloud computing expenses across the entire enterprise and at every lifecycle stage.

Azure cloud services add complexity to financial management in several ways. They complicate purchasing. They make it difficult to estimate application and service usage—especially for external use—and they require new rules for deployment, monitoring and optimization of that usage.

Analysts estimate one-third of current Azure cloud spend goes to waste

For 75% of the Fortune 500, Azure cloud spending is now a significant part of the budget. This shift increases pressure on the current approach to IT finance. Gartner forecasts the worldwide Azure cloud services market to grow an additional 322 percent in 2028 to $200 billion, up from $62 billion as of June 2024.

Yet as large as the move to include Azure cloud solutions to a diversified application portfolio has been, businesses are just beginning to understand the impacts of this new technology on business planning and cost controls. The new landscape of Azure is driving a seismic shift for finance and IT. It’s complicating the way companies plan, buy and use information technology, with significant financial implications.

Assess your organization’s cloud cost management capabilities with these questions. “No” answers highlight opportunity areas to enhance training, increase collaboration, and strengthen policies and controls.

As Azure cloud computing becomes widespread, enterprises must invest in new skillsets, core processes and management tools that leverage these technologies. For finance and IT teams, focusing on cost-effective Azure cloud services can bring immediate and tangible benefits. Our experience shows that a comprehensive Azure cloud cost optimization program can help organizations save up to 30 to 40 percent of their previous Azure cloud spending.

Launching an Azure cloud cost optimization initiative can be a significant undertaking. As with any strategic shift in IT services, moving to Azure takes investments in people, relearning ways of communicating and changes to how the enterprise measures success. Achieving mature Azure cloud cost optimization competencies is a multiyear transformation—not an immediate fix. Organizations can expect multiple phases of progress, with hurdles along the journey.

Likewise, cross-functional cooperation is essential. Azure cloud cost management is a truly interdisciplinary responsibility. Program governance and ownership are key. To drive commitment and long-term support, business leaders, IT managers and finance teams should all be equally invested as key stakeholders.

Azure Cost Management and Billing Tools

Azure Cost Management and Billing provides an integral toolkit for organizations to gain a holistic view of their Azure spending. This comprehensive suite allows for effective cost monitoring, analysis and optimization, facilitating a proactive management approach. Key

features include generating detailed cost reports accessible via the Azure portal, Microsoft 365 admin center or external data exports. These reports are crucial in dissecting resource usage and its financial impacts, enabling organizations to track spending trends and decipher the primary influences on cloud costs.

Azure Cost Management also encompasses tools for optimizing costs, including Azure Advisor for personalized cost recommendations, savings plans, and reservations. These features offer avenues for cost reduction based on usage patterns and predetermined commitments, proving essential for organizations intent on refining their resource usage and strategically planning new deployments.

Azure Optimizer Software

Introducing the industry’s best Azure Cloud Cost Optimization software, Azure Optimizer, LINK powered by US Cloud’s innovative Azure Cost Optimization technology. This software is designed to help enterprises achieve significant cost savings – often up to 30% of your average annual Azure spend.

The Azure cost optimization software will identify and prioritizing key opportunities to reduce cost across your entire Azure environment. From rebuilding and downscaling resources to eliminating unused or underutilized assets, apply reserved instances, and leveraging Azure Hybrid Benefit, we ensure you maximize your investment. With Azure Optimizer, you can quickly realize substantial savings while enhancing the performance and efficiency of your cloud infrastructure. Take control of your Azure costs today and drive your business forward with optimized cloud spending.

The Azure Cloud Cost Optimization dashboard provides a clear view of your current and projected Azure costs, along with potential savings and the status of recommended optimizations. The Azure Optimizer software dashboard includes a detailed report that summarizes the actions taken, the savings achieved, and further recommendations for cost optimization.

Azure cloud resource forecasting involves FinOps analyzing historical Azure trends and future cloud plans to predict resource costs, understand the impact on current IT budgets, and influence future budgets.

FinOps should analyze historical Azure cloud usage and cost trends to identify any patterns you expect to change. Augment that with future Azure cloud plans to generate an informed Azure resource spending forecast.

Enterprises should periodically review their Azure resource forecasts against the current Azure cloud budgets to identify risk and initiate remediation efforts. FinOps should further establish a cloud spending governance plan to balance Azure budgets across teams and departments and factor the learnings into future Azure resource budgets.

With an accurate, detailed Azure cloud spending forecast, enterprises are better prepared to adapt to future change in Azure cloud resource demand.

Use these Azure resource best practices to improve your enterprise’s Azure cost management and reduce your Azure cloud costs immediately.

Review Your Azure License or Payment Agreement

It can be confusing to understand Microsoft licenses due to the number of choices they offer. In the case of Azure, however, the payment options are straightforward; by pre-prepaying you receive a reasonable discount. Spending some time with an Azure licensing partner and taking them through your annual Azure spend can lead to more savings each year. The default option we often see is to opt for the PAYG (pay as you go) option and switching over to Reserved Instance can result in up to 70% reduction in cost.

If the Microsoft Licensing partner you speak to is also a Microsoft Cloud Service Provider (CSP) like US Cloud, you may also save on the cost based on their setup. Working with a CSP also comes with the additional convenience of dealing with a local partner who becomes your first point of contact and who will be able to offer and advise on other value-add Azure cloud services for your business.

Azure Cost Optimization Pro Tip:
Microsoft is simplifying the billing and management of Azure services through the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) which took effect in March 2019. This means that Enterprise Agreements (EA) will no longer be able to include Azure, leaving organizations with only MCA, CSP, or PAYG as options for purchasing Azure subscriptions moving forward.

Track Monthly Azure Usage

The Azure Portal provides a monitoring hub that allows you to know how much you’re spending and on which workload or application, enabling you to analyze and manage your Azure billings.

However, a more comprehensive approach to managing costs in Azure is by using Cost Management hub, which is included at no additional cost. This tool can help you to report and analyze usage and costs by allowing you to tag resources, budgets, create alerts, and provide recommendations.

Access Azure Recommendations

Another tool that comes free with your Azure portal is Azure Advisor. This provides you with personalized recommendations you can follow to achieve the best practices to optimize your deployments. It also helps you to analyze your resource allocation and measure your usage based on specific categories such as High Availability, Security, Performance, and Cost.

Use Azure Test Dev Environments

Your enterprise Dev team needs to develop cloud apps. As a result, you need multiple Azure test development environments. To optimize the value of your testing budget, you can also subscribe to a dev/test environment on Azure, which comes at a subsidized cost. For example, Windows Machines in a dev/test environment are charged at Linux VM rates, and SQL Databases are up to 55% cheaper.

Ask Your CSP to Set a Budget

Once you have your Azure licensing sorted out with a Microsoft CSP like US Cloud, you can be more proactive with your monthly Azure spend and ask them to set up a budget in the Partner Center Portal. This will ensure you get live alerts if the environment reaches a predefined Azure cost threshold.

Tools and Software

Services and Companies

Optimizing Azure Spend

Strategies and Techniques

Best Practices

Optimizing Azure Resources

Azure Cloud Optimizer