Azure Cost Management and Billing updates – November 2020 | Azure Blog and Updates

Preview new views optimized for resources and reservations

We receive a ton of great feedback in Cost Management. Thank you for that! We’re constantly looking for ways to improve your experience based on this feedback and that’s exactly what you’ll see with the latest cost analysis preview and the new Resources and Reservations views. These new views will be the basis for all new views going forward and we’d love to get your feedback before they’re released more broadly.

Identifying your most expensive resources and understanding what makes up those costs is critical. You may be familiar with the Cost by resource view today. We’re taking a fresh look at this view with a focus on performance and usability in the new Resources view.

We also get a lot of questions about reservations today. The new Reservations view shows what reservations you’re using and which resources are using them, facilitating internal chargeback. Billing account admins can also see how much of these reservations is unused, helping you identify opportunity to save even more.

These are just the beginning, but we’d love to get your thoughts! Any feedback you share here will impact all new built-in views, so this is a great opportunity to make a big impact! To see the preview, please fill out this quick, 5- to 10-minute survey:

What’s new in Cost Management Labs

1. Improved getting started – Now available in the public portal
   
   Expanded getting started experience covering more options across Cost Management and Billing.

2. New cost analysis views for resources and reservations
   
   Introducing new, faster cost views that break costs down by resource and reservation. We’re still working on these. You can opt into the new views using Try Preview from Cost Management Labs.

3. NEW: Change scope from the menu
   
   Allow changing scope from the menu for quicker navigation. You can opt-in using Try Preview from Cost Management Labs.

4. NEW: Open configuration items in the main menu
   
   Experimental option to show the selected configuration screen as a nested menu item in the Cost Management menu. You can opt-in using Try Preview from Cost Management Labs.

5. NEW: Streamlined Cost Management menu
   
   Only show settings in Configuration. Remove Cloudyn, Exports, and Connectors for AWS from the Cost Management menu. You can opt-in using Try Preview from Cost Management Labs.

Of course, that’s not all. Every change in Azure Cost Management is available in Cost Management Labs a week before it’s in the full Azure portal. We’re eager to hear your thoughts and understand what you’d like to see next. What are you waiting for? Try Cost Management Labs today.

New ways to save money with Azure

Lots of cost optimization improvements over the past month! Here are a few you might be interested in:

Upcoming changes to Azure usage data

Many organizations use the full Azure usage and charges to understand what’s being used, identify what charges should be internally billed to which teams, and/or to look for opportunities to optimize costs with Azure reservations and Azure Hybrid Benefit, just to name a few. If you’re doing any analysis or have setup integration based on product details in the usage data, please update your logic for the following.

• South Africa North
  • LRS Data Stored
    • Old: fa185be7-f94a-4b13-9d13-a28f14355341
    • New: 2d8d338-7922-4eee-9b00-0365c76cfdb5

  • GRS Data Stored
    • Old: 9ddbc061-ffa0-4ccc-bf20-3919502f70e5
    • New: 86a2bc4c-1095-586f-b1cc-dc292b43bd8d

• South Africa West
  • LRS Data Stored
    • Old: b26cd07d-b0e7-4d14-9d4f-64beccea3656
    • New: 941c1855-6d9e-4c4d-ac8a-41173138a6d8

  • GRS Data Stored
    • Old: 13cb3789-91a1-4ac6-9825-bbe4ed7df110
    • New: d237c29f-8845-5404-8ea5-28078fae1686

Also, remember the key-based Enterprise Agreement (EA) billing APIs have been replaced by new Azure Resource Manager APIs. The key-based APIs will still work through the end of your enrollment, but will no longer be available when you renew and transition into Microsoft Customer Agreement. Please plan your migration to the latest version of the UsageDetails API to ease your transition to Microsoft Customer Agreement at your next renewal.

New videos and learning opportunities

For those visual learners, here are 7 new videos you might be interested in:

Want a more guided experience? Start with Control Azure spending and manage bills with Azure Cost Management and Billing.

Documentation updates

This month we have a few great updates to help you troubleshoot common issues with reservations:

What’s next?

These are just a few of the big updates from last month. Don’t forget to check out the previous Azure Cost Management and Billing updates. We’re always listening and making constant improvements based on your feedback, so please keep the feedback coming.