Enable Azure amortized cost

Early access feature

Azure amortized cost is an early access feature available for testing and limited use.

After you connect an Azure standalone account, you can enable amortized cost reporting. Amortized cost spreads commitment-based charges (such as reservations and savings plans) over the benefit term, giving you effective-cost visibility in Cloud Analytics reports.

Enabling amortized cost creates an additional daily FOCUS cost export in the same Azure storage account used by your existing billing export. Your existing ActualCost export stays unchanged.

Prerequisistes

• You must already have a connected Azure standalone account with an active ActualCost billing export.

• You must have a Cloud Intelligence Enhanced or Enterprise plan.

• Your DoiT account must have the Manage Settings permission.

• In Azure, you need at least Microsoft.CostManagement/exports/write on the subscription, the same permission used to create the original billing export.

Enable amortized cost

1. Sign in to the DoiT console.

2. Navigate to the Integrations catalog, find the Microsoft Azure integration card, and select Assets.

3. Select the kebab menu (⋮) in the upper-right corner of the asset card of interest, and then select Enable Amortized Cost (a dot badge on the kebab menu indicates that amortized cost can be enabled for that subscription).

The setup dialog offers two methods to enable the feature:

CLI script

This option requires the Azure CLI installed and signed in.

1. In the setup dialog, select the CLI script tab.

2. Download or copy the shell script shown in the dialog. Save it as a .sh file. Do not paste the script directly into an interactive shell as a single command.

3. Run the script with your Azure subscription ID and storage account name:

   bash create-focus-export.sh <subscription-id> <storage-account>

   The script creates a daily FOCUS cost export pinned to dataset version 1.2-preview and runs the export once. For additional options, run bash create-focus-export.sh help.

4. Wait for the export files to appear in your storage account, then return to the DoiT console and select Enable Amortized Cost.

Manual setup

1. In the setup dialog, select the Manual setup tab.

2. In the Azure portal, go to Cost Management, select the billing scope that covers your subscription, and then select Exports.

   You can also select Open Azure Exports in the DoiT setup dialog to go directly to the Exports page.

3. Select Create, then select Create your own export on the Basics tab. Fill out the required fields:

   • Type of data: Select Cost and usage details (FOCUS) - Preview.
   • Export name: Enter a name such as DoiT-FocusCostExport.
   • Dataset version: Select 1.2-preview.
   • Frequency: Select Daily export of month-to-date costs.

4. Select Next, on the Destination tab, fill out the required fields. Use the same storage account and container as your ActualCost export:

   • Storage type: Choose Azure blob storage.
   • Destination and storage: Select Use existing.
   • Subscription: Choose the subscription that contains the storage account.
   • Storage account: Select the storage account specified in your deployed DoiT template.
   • Container: Enter the container name shown in the DoiT setup dialog.
   • Directory: Enter the directory name shown in the DoiT setup dialog.
   • Format: Select CSV.
   • Compression Type: Select None.
   • Keep the Overwrite data checkbox selected.

5. Select Next.

6. On the Review + create tab, select Create.

7. Back on the Exports page, select the export you just created and select Run now.

8. Return to the DoiT console and select Enable Amortized Cost in the dialog.

The DoiT console discovers, validates, and registers your FOCUS cost export. Once registration succeeds, amortized cost data appears after the next ingest run, which can take up to 24 hours.

Troubleshooting

If the DoiT console reports that no FOCUS cost export was found:

• Verify that the FOCUS cost export exists in the Azure portal (Cost Management > Exports) and has run at least once.

• Confirm that the export writes to the same storage account used by your existing billing export.

• Allow a few minutes for the export files to arrive in storage.

If you continue to experience issues, open an expert inquiry.

What's next

After amortized cost is enabled, you can use the Amortized cost extended metric in Cloud Analytics reports to analyze the effective cost of workloads that benefit from Azure reservations and savings plans.