Unit 1 of 4
Cost Management
12 min
+100 points
Learning objectives
When you finish this unit, you will be able to:
- Describe factors that can affect costs in Azure.
- Compare the pricing calculator and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator.
- Describe cost management capabilities in Azure.
- Describe the purpose of tags.
Managing Azure costs
Understanding cost drivers and using the right tools helps organizations control cloud spending.
Factors affecting costs
Resource type, region, tier, redundancy options, data transfer, and usage patterns all influence Azure bills.
Cost estimation tools
- Pricing Calculator: estimate costs for planned Azure deployments.
- TCO Calculator: compare on-premises costs with Azure over time.
Cost management capabilities
Azure Cost Management and Billing provide budgets, alerts, and analysis to track and optimize spending.
Tags
Tags are key-value pairs applied to resources for organizing billing, reporting, and governance (e.g. Department:Finance, Environment:Production).
Exam focus: distinguish between pricing and TCO calculators, and recognize how tags and cost management tools support governance.