How to Keep Your Microsoft Azure Pricing Under Control and Within Budget

One of the main advantages of migrating your IT infrastructure to Azure is that it’s completely flexible and scalable.

But many businesses fail to realise that same flexibility can often take your cloud costs well beyond your planned budget. And, considering you receive your monthly cloud bills in arrears, this will happen without the approval, or even knowledge, of the person responsible for managing that budget.

Additionally, if your cloud environment isn’t configured properly, you’ll probably be over-spending further. You may even be paying for expenses that aren’t necessary to your organisation at all.

So, how can you solve these challenges with Microsoft Azure pricing?

You could use:

• Options from your cloud provider, like manual management of your bills or in-built cost management tools
• Cost management tools from third-party providers
• An Azure consultant

Beyond those options, there are some steps you could take yourself which could help reduce your Microsoft Azure pricing issues:

• Review your architecture and ensure it’s still fit for the purpose
• Remove old licenses or resources no longer required
• Scale your usage of resources out of core hours
• Consider implementing auto-scaling with your cloud systems
• Research whether a different data centre could save you money (UK-based data centres can provide cost savings of up to 30% for example)
• Work with a provider who passes on savings

While these may help, they’ll cost you even more time and money. Most importantly, though, they won’t solve the root problem. It's the same with the Azure calculator, if you get accurate estimates out of it you still have to implement those changes and monitor them over time. 

Unless you’re continually monitoring and optimising your ever-changing cloud deployments, your monthly costs will inevitably creep up higher than expected.

Seeing your Azure spending rise unexpectedly is a challenge you’ll continue to face if you don’t have automated cost optimisation tools in place to match the complexity of the cloud.

We’ve seen too many businesses reach this realisation when it's already too late, with costs already out of control. That’s why it’s so important to take a proactive approach to prevent this problem from harming your own organisation.

To learn more about how to gain full visibility and control of your Azure pricing and costs, read our in-depth article which explores this topic further.