Overview

The Microsoft Azure Billing Event Monitor watches your Microsoft Azure configuration and collects billing information. You can monitor month-to-date billing or the forecasted billing for the current month or next month. Daily billing increases can be shown as a percentage or dollar amount. Monthly and daily billing information can be shown as a total or broken down by category.

Pre-setup instructions for this event monitor can be found here.

Use Cases

• Avoiding unexpected price surges in your monthly Azure bill

Monitoring Options

This event monitor provides the following options:

Authentication

Select an authentication profile of the Microsoft Azure Credentials type or use specific values for Subscription ID, Application (client) ID, Directory (tenant) ID, and Client Secret Value.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if Microsoft Azure is unreachable

Use this option to alert you if the event monitor is unable to connect to Microsoft Azure. Reasons for a failure to connect include invalid security tokens and loss of external network access.

Alert based on the month-to-date bill

Use this option to get [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] alerts about configurations whose total month-to-date billing has exceeded a dollar amount.

Alert based on the month-to-date bill for any category

Use this option to get [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] alerts about configurations where month-to-date billing, broken down by category, has exceeded a dollar amount.

Alert based on the current month's forecasted total billing

Use this option to get [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] alerts about configurations where the next month's forecasted total billing is expected to exceed a dollar amount.

Alert based on the next month's forecasted total billing

Use this option to get [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] alerts about configurations where the current month's forecasted total billing is expected to exceed a dollar amount.

Alert based on the percentage daily increase in total billing

Use this option to get [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] alerts about configurations where the daily increase in total billing exceeds a percentage.

Alert based on the daily increase in total billing

Use this option to get [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] alerts about configurations where the daily increase in total billing exceeds a dollar amount.

Alert based on the percentage daily increase in billing for any category

Use this option to get [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] alerts about configurations where daily billing, broken down by category, exceeds a percentage.

Alert based on the daily increase in billing for any category

Use this option to get [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] alerts about configurations where the daily increase in total billing exceeds a dollar amount.

Don't report zero dollar values

Use this option to get alerts only when charges have been applied to your bill.

Exclude the following when checking categories

Enter a comma-separated list of billing categories that should be excluded from alerts.

Only include the following when checking categories

Enter a comma-separated list of only the billing categories you wish to be alerted about.

Authentication and Security

First, you'll need to create an app registration to add to your event monitor's authentication profile. Information on how to do this can be found in our "Creating an Azure Authentication Profile" article.

Your event monitor will also need Billing Reader permissions at the subscription level. To configure this, go to your Azure portal and click Subscriptions > [Your Subscription] > Access Control (IAM) > Add Role Assignment, then search for "Billing Reader". Finally, add your app registration as a member and click "Review and Assign".

Protocols

Data Points

This event monitor generates the following data points:

Data Point	Description
Bandwidth: Daily Bill Increase	The amount your bandwidth bill increased that day.
Bandwidth: Daily Bill Increase %	The percent by which your bandwidth bill increased that day.
Bandwidth: Month to Date	The amount of money you've spent on bandwidth so far this month.
Current Month Forecasted Total Bill	The predicted total of this month's bill.
Month-to-Date Total Bill	The total bill so far this month.
Next Month Forecasted Total Bill	The predicted total bill for next month.
Storage: Daily Bill Increase	The amount your storage bill went up on the current day.
Storage: Daily Bill Increase %	The percent by which your storage bill went up that day.
Storage: Month-to-Date	The amount you've spent on storage in the month so far.
Total Daily Bill Increase	The total amount that your bill increased today.
Total Daily Bill Increase %	The percentage amount that your bill increased today.
Virtual Machines: Daily Bill Increase	The dollar amount that your virtual machines bill increased today.
Virtual Machines: Daily Bill Increase %	The percentage amount that your virtual machines bill went up today.
Virtual Machines: Month-to-Date	The amount you've spent on virtual machines so far this month.
Virtual Network: Daily Bill Increase	The dollar amount that your virtual network bill has increased today.
Virtual Network: Daily Bill Increase %	The percentage that your virtual network bill has increased today.
Virtual Network: Month-to-Date	The amount you've spent on your virtual network so far this month.

Sample Output