{"id":812,"date":"2020-01-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/blog\/azure-cost-management-2019-year-in-review"},"modified":"2025-06-29T10:39:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T17:39:00","slug":"azure-cost-management-2019-year-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/blog\/azure-cost-management-2019-year-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Azure Cost Management 2019 year in review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When we talk about cost management, we focus on three core tenets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Ensuring cost visibility<\/strong> so everyone is aware of the financial impact their solutions have.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Driving accountability <\/strong>throughout the organization to stop bad spending patterns.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Continuous cost optimization<\/strong> as your usage changes over time to do more with less.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    These were the driving forces in 2019 as we set out to build a strong foundation that pulls together all costs across all account types and ensures everyone in the organization has a means to report on, control, and optimize costs. Our ultimate goal is to empower you to lead a healthier, more financially responsible organization.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    All costs behind a single pane of glass<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    On the heels of the Azure Cost Management preview, 2019 started off strong with the general availability of Enterprise Agreement (EA)<\/a><\/strong> accounts in February and pay-as-you-go (PAYG)<\/a><\/strong> in April. At the same time, Microsoft as a whole embarked on a journey to modernize the entire commerce platform with the new Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA)<\/strong>, which started rolling out for enterprises in March, pay-as-you-go subscriptions in July, and Cloud Solution Providers (CSP) using Azure plan<\/a><\/strong> in November. Whether you get Azure through the Microsoft field, directly from Azure.com, or through a Microsoft partner, you have the power of Azure Cost Management at your fingertips. But getting basic coverage of your Azure usage is only part of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    To effectively manage costs, you need all costs together, in a single repository. This is exactly what Azure Cost Management brings you. From the unprecedented ability to monitor Amazon Web Services (AWS)<\/a><\/strong> costs within the Azure portal in May (a first for any cloud provider), to the inclusion of reservation and Marketplace purchases<\/a><\/strong> in June, Azure Cost Management enables you to manage all your costs from a single pane of glass, whether you’re using Azure or AWS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What’s next?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Support for Sponsorship and CSP subscriptions not on an Azure plan are at the top of the list to ensure every Azure subscription can use Azure Cost Management. AWS support will become generally available and then Google Cloud Platform (GCP) support will be added.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Making it easier to report on and analyze costs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Getting all costs in one place is only the beginning. 2019 also saw many improvements that help you report on and analyze costs. You were able to dig in and explore costs with the 2018 preview, but the only way to truly control and optimize costs is to raise awareness of current spending patterns. To that end, reporting in 2019 was focused on making it easier to customize and share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The year kicked off with the ability to pin customized views to the Azure portal dashboard<\/strong> in January. You could share links<\/a><\/strong> in May, save views<\/a><\/strong> directly from cost analysis in August, and download charts as an image<\/a><\/strong> in September. You also saw a major Power BI<\/a><\/strong> refresh in October that no longer required classic API keys and added reservation details and recommendations. Each option helps you not only save time, but also starts that journey of driving accountability by ensuring everyone is aware of the costs they’re responsible for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Looking beyond sharing, you also saw new capabilities like forecasting costs<\/a><\/strong> in June and switching between currencies<\/a><\/strong> in July, simpler out-of-the-box options like the new date picker<\/a><\/strong> in May and invoice details view<\/a><\/strong> in September, and changes that simply help you get your job done the way you want to like support for the Azure portal dark theme<\/a><\/strong> and continuous accessibility<\/strong> improvements throughout the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    From an API automation and integration perspective, 2019 was also a critical milestone as EA cost and usage APIs moved to Azure Resource Manager. The Resource Manager APIs are forward-looking and designed to minimize your effort when it comes time to transition to Microsoft Customer Agreement by standardizing terminology<\/a><\/strong> across account types. If you haven’t started the migration to the Resource Manager APIs, make that your number one resolution for the new year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What’s next?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    2020 will continue down this path, from more flexible reporting and scheduling email notifications to general improvements around ease of use and increased visibility throughout the Azure portal. Power BI will get Azure reservation and Hybrid Benefit reports as well as support for subscription and resource group users who don’t have access to the whole billing account. You can also expect to see continued API improvements to help make it easier than ever to integrate cost data into your business systems and processes.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Flexible cost control that puts the power in your hands<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Once you understand what you’re spending and where, your next step is to figure out how to stop the bad spending patterns and keep costs under control. You already know you can define budgets to get notified about and take action on overages. You decide what actions you want to take, whether that be as simple as an email notification or as drastic as deleting all your resources to ensure you won’t be charged. Cost control in 2019 was centered on helping you stay on top of your costs and giving you the tools to control spending as you see fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This started with a new, consolidated alerts experience<\/a><\/strong> in February where you can see all your invoice, credit, and budget overage alerts in a single place. Budgets were expanded to support new account types we talked about above, and to support management groups<\/a><\/strong> in June giving you a view of all your costs across subscriptions. Then in August, you were able to create targeted budgets with filters<\/a><\/strong> for fine-grained tracking, whether that be for an entire service, a single resource, or an application that spans multiple subscriptions (via tags). This also came with an improved experience when creating budgets to help you better estimate what your budget should be based on historical and forecasted trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What’s next?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    2020 will take cost control to the next level by allowing you to split shared costs with cost allocation rules and define an additional markup for central teams who typically run on overhead or don’t want to expose discounts to the organization. We’re also looking at improvements around management groups and tags to give you more flexibility to manage costs the way you need to for your organization.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    New ways to save and do more with less<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Cloud computing comes with a lot of promises, from flexibility and speed to scalability and security. The promise of cost savings is often the driving force behind cloud migrations, yet is also one of the more elusive to achieve. Luckily, Azure delivers new cost optimization opportunities nearly every month! This is on top of the recommendations offered by Azure Advisor, which are specifically tuned to save money on the resources you already have deployed. Here are a few of the over two dozen new cost saving opportunities you saw in 2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n