How Do You Keep an Eye on Your Azure Costs?

Absolutely! I spend about 30 minutes every two weeks analyzing the costs against the project expectations. It's crucial to match costs with business value, which isn't always straightforward. Just relying on alerts or budgets isn't enough; you need to dig deeper if something feels off.

Yes, I monitor it almost daily. I set up budget alerts based on forecasts, and I receive notifications if there’s a sharp change in spending. I've seen too many businesses suffer due to complacency when it comes to Azure costs.

For smaller teams, it’s often about simplicity. Setting up Azure budgets with alerts at reasonable thresholds helps catch surprises when someone forgets to turn off a test VM. We also do a few light checks on idle resources regularly and keep everyone updated.

Honestly, we don’t do much unless our CEO complains. There's no formal FinOps in place; it's just a bit of firefighting when costs spike. It’s not ideal, and it definitely doesn’t create the visibility we need.

I mainly use manual checks along with cost alerts set up for resource groups. We often review our costs biweekly and make use of Azure Advisor too. Sometimes third-party tools come in handy as well. Overall, I'd say we’re pretty attentive to our spending, which Microsoft has recognized us for.