Azure Setup Guide: Connect Your Account in 2 Minutes
The onboarding process offers two setup options to integrate your Azure environment seamlessly — Automated Setup (recommended) and Manual Setup (for custom security requirements).
- First visit the Microsoft login URL: https://microsoft.com/devicelogin
- Enter the authentication code shown in the console widget on your right (e.g.
N2W5PSH4G). - Log in to your Azure portal account and verify the code registration.
- Once verification is complete, return to the Clouds Analytics onboarding page, check the confirmation checkbox, and click Continue.
- The system will automatically discover your active subscriptions. Select your desired subscription and click Continue.
- Provide a friendly name for your account, verify the detected Subscription ID, Tenant ID, and Application ID, then click Complete Automated Setup. You will be redirected to the main dashboard.
Enter code to allow access
Once you enter the code displayed on your app or device, you will have access to your account.
- Log in to your Microsoft Entra ID console.
- Go to App Registrations from the left sidebar navigation menu.
- Click on New Registration at the top menu options.
- Enter a descriptive name. We recommend:
$FinOpsControl-Integrations. - Under Redirect URI, select Web and input the endpoint:
https://app.finopscontrol.com. - Click Register to create the application.
- Navigate to Certificates & secrets, select New client secret. Give it a description, choose an expiration of 24 months, click Add, and copy the generated Secret Value (not ID) immediately.
- Go to the Subscriptions section in the Azure Portal.
- Select the target subscription you want to connect to Clouds Analytics.
- Click on Access control (IAM) in the subscription's panel.
- Click Add at the top and select Add role assignment.
- Under Job function roles, select the following roles:
Reader Network Contributor Virtual Machine Contributor Desktop Virtualization Virtual Machine Contributor Cost Management Contributor - Click Next. Under Members, click Select Members, search for your registered app (
$FinOpsControl-Integrations), select it, and click Save.
The Cloudsanalytics Dashboard provides a unified view of Azure cloud spending, forecasted costs, and cost optimization opportunities. It helps organizations gain insights into cloud usage, identify cost-saving opportunities, and make informed financial decisions for efficient cloud management.
This interactive table lists Azure services and their respective costs over time.
The VM Optimization Dashboard provides detailed insights into Azure VM instance costs, usage patterns, and cost-saving opportunities. It focuses specifically on identifying inefficient or oversized instances, helping teams implement cost-effective resource management strategies.
a. Combined Recommendations: Displays all VM optimization insights generated from both Cloudsanalytics's automated analysis and Azure Advisor recommendations in one unified interface.
b. Cloudsanalytics Recommendations: Recommendations generated exclusively by our native rules engine using granular p95/p99 CPU and memory metrics.
c. Azure Recommendations: Direct recommendations pulled from Azure Advisor (like standard size downgrades).
The Managed Disk Recommendations page helps identify unused, unattached, or underutilized storage resources, enabling dramatic reduction in persistent block storage costs.
- Unattached disks (orphaned after VM delete)
- Idle disks (negligible read/write IOPS)
- Oversized storage capacity allocations
- Delete unattached storage to completely stop cost leaks.
- Downgrade SKU from Premium SSD to Standard SSD/HDD for low IOPS VMs.
Clouds Analytics provides cost visibility and resource scheduling/rightsizing for major Azure Database offerings including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Database, SQL Elastic Pool, and SQL Managed Instances.
The module provides two key categories of recommendations: (1) Cloudsanalytics internal logic based on CPU/memory usage patterns and (2) Azure Advisor suggestions. Rightsizing is evaluated based on active SKU, vCores, storage size, and performance tier.
Manage standalone Azure SQL Databases alongside Azure SQL Elastic Pools. Cost summary cards display overall expenditures and potential savings:
- SQL Database Cost Example: $13.54 (Savings: $0.00)
- SQL Elastic Pool Cost Example: $244.46 (Savings: $0.00)
Identify underutilized DTUs or vCore configurations inside Elastic Pools, and easily redistribute databases to optimize performance metrics and stop over-provisioning.
The Managed Instance dashboard analyzes database deployment topologies and identifies Stopped instances that are still incurring storage costs.
ca-managed-instance-db is detected as Stopped, but still costs $662.27/month due to allocated storage reservation. Zone redundancy is disabled.
Navigation path: Go to Optimization → Azure DB → SQL → Managed Instance Pool to inspect total costs (e.g. $1324.54), check idle pools, and review SKU optimization opportunities.
Azure Blob Storage is Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud. Cost-optimization dashboards help evaluate tier configurations (Hot, Cool, Archive) to cut storage overhead.
- Move infrequently accessed blobs to Cool or Archive tiers.
- Reduce redundancy settings (e.g. switch GRS to LRS).
- Delete unused storage containers or old snapshots.
- Apply auto-delete lifecycle rules to temporary directories.
- Enable standard Microsoft lifecycle management.
- Compress or segment massive blob assets.
- Avoid premium block storage tiers unless strictly needed.
Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) let you deploy and manage a group of identical, load-balanced virtual machines. The dashboard highlights scaling policies and right-sizes underlying compute configurations.
- Set filters to isolate non-production subscriptions.
- Review scale-in thresholds and compute load metrics.
- Apply recommended size changes (e.g. switch standard VM classes to burstable B-series or spot VMs where appropriate).
- Configure automated scale-down schedules for off-peak business hours.
Azure Container Instances let you run containers directly in the cloud without managing virtual machines. Clouds Analytics flags orphan or zombie container tasks to eliminate waste.
Recommendations: Identify long-running container tasks that could be more cost-effectively migrated to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), terminate completed test containers, and apply auto-shutdown to development staging instances.
Azure charges for reserved Public IP addresses that are not actively associated with running resources. Clouds Analytics displays all unassociated Public IPs to prevent unnecessary overhead.
Best Practices: Identify unassociated Public IPs and release them, downgrade standard SKU IPs to basic SKU where advanced routing properties are not required, and convert static IPs to dynamic allocations for development/staging workloads.
Azure Managed Disk Snapshots are point-in-time backups. If not managed properly, historical snapshots accumulate and create major billing leaks.
Recommendations: Identify ancient snapshots not tied to active disaster recovery policies, flag snapshots older than 30 or 90 days, recommend deletion of dev stack remnants, and enforce automated snapshot lifecycle parameters.
Evaluate and optimize your Return on Investment (ROI) from Azure Savings Plans. The simulator analyzes historical compute patterns to suggest commitment ratios.
Azure Web Apps are part of App Service. The dashboard analyzes app service plan resource usage to identify idle plans or oversized tiers.
Best Practices: Consolidate multiple low-traffic apps onto a single App Service Plan, downgrade plan tiers (e.g. Premium to Standard/Basic) for non-production environments, and apply auto-shutdown rules to App Service instances.
Azure Static Web Apps host static code assets. Keep track of bandwidth costs, active staging environments, and unused branches.
Recommendations: Use the free tier for low-traffic applications, automate cleanup of inactive pull-request preview environments, and monitor CDN data transfer costs across global points of presence.
Review cumulative savings details for VM services, focusing on Virtual Machines, Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS), and database resources within selected date ranges.
- VM Total Savings: Accumulated savings from automated VM scheduling and sizing.
- VMSS Total Savings: Savings achieved by scale-in actions and spot instance policies.
- Total Savings Card: Real-time consolidated metric of all cloud savings.
Automate virtual machine operations to power down idle nodes and prevent billing accumulation over weekends or off-peak periods.
2. Stop Now: Power down active nodes immediately.
3. Schedule Idle: Automatically stop nodes if CPU averages remain below 5% for three consecutive days.
4. Schedule Calendar: Configure weekly calendar schedules (e.g. stop Friday at 8:00 PM, start Monday at 7:00 AM).
Instances: Lists current status of all servers (Running/Stopped) for manual overrides.
Scheduled Events: Displays all active start/stop timers and future runs.
Idle Events: Lists servers flagged for underutilization that are candidates for termination.
Activity Events: Access log detailing who triggered manual or automatic operations.
Manage VMSS instances collectively. You can trigger bulk actions across entire scale sets rather than modifying instances individually.
Workflow: Check target VMSS, choose action (Start VMSS, Stop VMSS, Schedule Idle, Schedule Shutdown), input local timezone settings, and apply. Status displays on summary cards: (1) Total VM Scale Sets, (2) Total Running, (3) Total Stopped.
The Global Scan Dashboard gives a consolidated summary of active resources across all geographic Azure regions for any selected account.
Select your Azure subscription, click Click to Scan, and watch the analyzer fetch active resource counts (VMs, storage accounts, network components, security configurations) to create a visual regional distribution chart.
The Account Scan features automatically audit your Azure resource configurations against pre-defined security rules (like CIS benchmarks) to identify vulnerabilities.
- Publicly accessible Blob Storage containers
- Weak IAM assignments & open network ports
- Unencrypted disk volumes & database instances
- Total Findings: Evaluated rules count
- Passed: Fully compliant resources
- Failed: Misconfigurations requiring remediation
Unified console outlining all active service billing records across custom timeframes.
- Filters: Sort by active financial Year and Month.
- Overview Cards: Highlights Total Zero-Cost Services, Total Active Services, and Total Services Cost.
- Expandable Regions: Expand any service row using the
+button to view regional cost distribution (e.g. eastasia, westus).
Enables custom dimensions, groupings, and data filtering to forecast future spending profiles.
1. Set Start Date and End Date for target analysis.
2. Select billing granularity (Daily, Monthly, Hourly).
3. Group by dimensions (Service Name, Region, Resource Group).
4. Review generated graphs mapping average monthly expenditure and trend curves.
Trace network egress and cross-region data transfer costs to optimize bandwidth allocations.
Metrics: Review Total Regions Active and Total Bandwidth Cost. Expand regional nodes to isolate which services (like Blob storage or VMs) are generating high egress fees.
Centralized list of all system payments, subscription tier renewals, invoice PDFs, and outstanding balances.
Invite collaborators to the console and delegate access controls using role-based parameters.
Role Options: Administrator (full platform configuration capabilities) or Read-Only (view-only billing and security profiles).
Enforce alerting policies to notify engineering contacts regarding billing spikes or security compliance failures.
- Notification Channels: E-mail alerts or Slack Webhook integrations.
- Trigger Categories: Report summaries (weekly cost logs), Dashboard updates, or Anomaly Alerts (triggered if service daily cost spikes by ≥ $100 and ≥ 10%).