Exercise - Determine your most expensive resource and see trends

  • 7 minutes

Now that you've had the opportunity to learn about the Cost Analysis tool, it's time to put that tool to work. In this exercise, you select one of your Azure subscriptions and identify your most costly resource. Then, you use the Cost Analysis tool to look at your costs, group them, and narrow results.

Important

You need your own Azure subscription to run this exercise, and you might incur charges. If you don't already have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Access the Azure portal

To start, sign in to the Azure portal using the following step.

Next, in the Azure portal, navigate to Cost analysis.

  1. In the portal search box, enter Subscriptions.

  2. In the list of services, select Subscriptions.

  3. In the list of subscriptions, select a subscription.

  4. In the menu pane under Cost Management, select Cost analysis.

Group results by resource

Next, group your results to view resources.

  • Select the Group by list to view a list of values to filter by, then select Resources.

Adjust date range and granularity

Lastly, adjust results to find your most expensive resources.

  1. Select the date list item to view available date ranges, and then under Calendar months, select Last 3 months.

  2. Note your most expensive resource.

  3. Look for trends in specific resource costs over time.

  4. When looking a specific resource, notice its resource name (resourceID). We use the information in a later exercise.