Monitoring Azure Resource Costs with PowerShell

Wesley EllisDec 11, 2024

Introduction

Keeping track of Azure resource costs is essential for managing your cloud budget effectively. This PowerShell script helps you retrieve and analyze cost data for your Azure subscription.

Use Case

This script is valuable for:

Budgeting and Forecasting: Understanding your spending patterns helps you predict future costs and allocate resources accordingly.
Cost Optimization: Identifying areas of high spending allows you to optimize resource usage and reduce unnecessary expenses.
Reporting: Generating regular cost reports provides insights into your cloud spending and supports informed decision-making.

Script

PowerShell

# Connect to Azure
Connect-AzAccount

# Set the subscription ID and time range for the query
$subscriptionId = "<Your Subscription ID>"
$startDate = (Get-Date).AddDays(-30) # Get cost data for the last 30 days
$endDate = Get-Date

# Retrieve cost data
$costData = Get-AzConsumptionUsageDetail -SubscriptionId $subscriptionId `
                                        -StartDate $startDate -EndDate $endDate

# Group cost data by resource group and calculate total cost
$costByResourceGroup = $costData | Group-Object ResourceGroupName | ForEach-Object {
    [PSCustomObject]@{
        ResourceGroup = $_.Name
        TotalCost = ($_.Group | Measure-Object -Property PretaxCost -Sum).Sum
    }
}

# Display the results
$costByResourceGroup | Sort-Object TotalCost -Descending | Format-Table -AutoSize

# You can further analyze the cost data by resource type, service name, etc.

Explanation

The script connects to your Azure account.
It defines the subscription ID and the time period for which to retrieve cost data.
It uses the Get-AzConsumptionUsageDetail cmdlet to get detailed cost information.
It groups the cost data by resource group and calculates the total cost for each group.
The output shows the resource groups with the highest costs.

Outro

This script provides a basic framework for monitoring Azure resource costs. You can customize it to generate more detailed reports, export the data to a CSV file, or integrate it with other reporting tools.