Azure Costs: Revised Spending Analytics Engine for Cloud Solution Providers

October 16, 2017December 21, 2017 de Azure Cost Monitor azure, billing, cloud, csp, microsoft

Today we’re very excited to announce the availability of the revised spending analytics engine for cloud solution providers. All of the enhancements focus on more accuracy and productivity, when working with your customers on a daily basis.

Since Azure Costs is supporting direct cloud solution providers also called CSP Tier 1, we work together with many different CSPs around the globe. The analytics engine in Azure Costs is one of the most important components and ensures that the spending data is aggregated well and all processes like up-scale a resource are outlined and calculated correctly.

As a service in Microsoft Azure consists of many parts we’ve decided to focus on the development of the analytics engine to understand the different meters correctly. This gives us the possibility to invest more in predictions and recommendations based on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Especially complex situations like an out-scale event can now be visualised very easily.

The new engine will be rolled out to all customers within several waves and after an opt-in phase it will become our standard engine. For now every CSP needs to switch directly in the data view generated with the new engine by selecting the action shown above. In addition the spending dashboard of every single customer can be moved to the new engine manually as show bellow:

This prevents that we disturb customers of a cloud solutions provider by accident.

Interested in the new feature?
Getting started with Azure Costs for CSPs is very easy, just visit our portal just for Cloud Solution providers and enroll into the CSP program as described above. To become part of the public preview of the CSP support an existing enterprise plan is required.

Any questions, wishes or ideas? Try our feedback portal or drop a mail to help@azure-costs.com.

Azure Costs: Feature Update for CSP Support

August 21, 2017July 26, 2017 de Azure Cost Monitor acm, azure, billing, cloud, csp, microsoft, SaaS

Today we’re very excited to announce some great feature updates for our Cloud Solution Providers platform. All the updates focus on more accuracy and productivity, when working on a daily basis with your customers.

The following list describes all features in detail and gives you a brief overview on how to use them:

Defining Cloud Solution Provider Margins allows the CSP to differentiate between the pricing Microsoft offers to CSPs and the price the CSP offers for the customer. Just define the different pricing tier per customer individually
Generate Cloud Solution Provider Filters allows to hide services which are not charged for the customer. Only services targeted by the CSP filter will appear in the customer portal.
Offer a customer spending portal beside a reseller spending portal allows your customers to manage the spendings by their own. This portal gives your customers 100% the same features incl. team management as if they would sign up to Azure Costs with an enterprise edition directly and an EA contract.

Interested in the new feature?
Getting started with Azure Costs for CSPs is very easy, just visit our new portal just for Cloud Solution providers and enroll into the CSP program as described above. To become part of the public preview of the CSP support an existing enterprise plan is required.

Any questions, wishes or ideas? Try our feedback portal or drop a mail to help@azure-costs.com.

Azure Costs: Public Preview CSP Support

July 31, 2017July 26, 2017 de Azure Cost Monitor acm, azure, billing, cloud, csp, microsoft, SaaS

Today we’re very excited to announce the start of the public preview for Cloud Solution Providers. After several weeks and months of continous improvements in the azure costs platform, we now start the public preview phase of the CSP support.

The great new CSP portal gives you access to the spendings your customers are generating. There are a couple of use cases we would like to point out:

Enroll into the CSP program: When visiting our new CSP portal the system will require enrolling into the CSP program. You can do this with an existing Azure Costs account or in case you would like to differentiate between internal spendings and customer spendings, just use an additional account!
Register Accounts: Microsoft requires every CSP to sign into the CSP program for every geographical region separately. As an internal reseller you will have accounts for USD, EUR or AUD and several more. Azure Costs allows you to register every single CSP account, to track costs in different currencies and countries separately.
Activate Customers: During the registration process Azure Costs imports all existing customers. This does not mean Azure Costs tracks spendings. If you would like to track spendings for a specific customer, activate this customer in the “New/Not-Activated Customers” widget. The spending information of every activated customer will be imported automatically.

Interested in the new feature?
Getting started with Azure Costs for CSPs is very easy, just visit our new portal for Cloud Solution providers and enroll into the CSP program as described above. To become part of the public preview of the CSP support an existing enterprise plan is required.

Any questions, wishes or ideas? Try our feedback portal or drop a mail to help@azure-costs.com.

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a blog of Dirk Eisenberg

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