True Azure files backup costs not clear from cost analysis

Question

We have a resource group which contains a storage account, sync services, recovery vault etc etc. When we look at cost analysis for this resource group we see an entry under service name for backup. The cost associated with this backup service is very small. When we run the Azure estimator for any files workloads we've ever considered moving to Azure the backup cost is substantial yet in our main production environment we aren't seeing the sized numbers we expect broken out in cost analysis.

My guess is that the service 'backup' is really just the cost of recovery vault orchestrating the snapshots for backups and that the vast majority of what the estimator calls 'backup costs' are really getting rolled into 'Storage'. Is that on target?

Is there any way to see how much of our storage cost is from snapshots (which is basically backups) versus the live AFS shares?

Thanks,

Chris Ransdell

Answer 1

Hi Ransdell, Chris,

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

Your understanding of Azure backup costs seems to be right. The backup service you see in your cost analysis likely reflects the charges associated with the Recovery Services Vault, which primarily orchestrates the snapshot management for Azure Files. The actual costs related to the snapshots, essentially the backups; are included in the overall storage costs of your Azure Storage account.

Breakdown of Costs:

1. Backup Service Charges: The small entry under the backup service in your cost analysis is probably the fixed cost for the Recovery Services Vault, which does not store the backup data itself but manages the snapshots.
2. Snapshot Storage Costs: The snapshots created for Azure Files are stored within the same storage account and incur storage charges. Therefore, the majority of what the Azure estimator refers to as "backup costs" is likely rolled into the broader storage costs for your Azure File Shares.
3. Storage Account Costs: The costs associated with your storage account will include charges for both the live Azure File Shares and the snapshots. Unfortunately, Azure's cost analysis tools may not provide a detailed breakdown specifically separating snapshot costs from live storage costs.

Viewing Snapshot Costs:

To evaluate how much of your storage cost is attributed to snapshots versus live Azure File Shares, consider the following approaches:

Azure Storage Metrics: Utilize Azure Storage metrics and logs to analyze the usage of storage. This can help identify how much data is being stored as snapshots versus active file shares.

Azure Cost Management + Billing: Use Azure Cost Management tools to filter and categorize costs. While it may not provide a direct breakdown, you can analyze trends and usage patterns that might help infer costs related to snapshots.

Manual Calculation: If feasible, you could manually track the size of your snapshots over time and compare it to the total storage used in your account. This would require monitoring the size of the Azure File Shares and the snapshots periodically.

In summary, your assumption that the backup costs are primarily related to the orchestration of snapshots and that the actual storage costs for these snapshots are included in the overall storage account charges is correct. There is no straightforward way to separate these costs in the Azure cost analysis tools.

hth!

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