Managing Costs for Microsoft Azure Provider Deployments

The Cost Insights page in Horizon Universal Console helps administrators track Microsoft Azure costs, monitor utilization, and optimize resource spending for Microsoft Azure Edge deployments. The page provides detailed cost analysis to help you identify where costs occur and where savings opportunities might exist. You can view this cost, savings, and utilization data at either the pool group level or the individual pool level.

Important:

• Cost Insights is available only for Microsoft Azure Edge deployments. This feature is not available for other provider deployments.

• Cost Insights data might be delayed by up to three days due to data collection and processing from Microsoft Azure costs and savings data.

• If you use a custom role to make API calls to your Microsoft Azure subscription, include the appropriate Azure Cost Management related permissions as described in To Use a Custom Role for Horizon Cloud App Registration.

Viewing Cost Information

The Cost Insights page displays the following key metrics. Use the Pools / Pool Groups selector at the top of the page to choose whether these metrics are shown per pool or per pool group. All three metrics below update to reflect your selection.

Optimization Savings Chart: Shows the cost savings achieved through Horizon Cloud power management policies that you have already configured and enabled. This metric displays:

• Cost without Horizon policies: The estimated cost if your VMs ran continuously for 24 hours without any power management policies applied.

• Optimization savings: The actual dollar amount saved by using Horizon power management features.

• A circular chart showing the breakdown of savings by category:

  • Compute: Savings from power management and spare management actions, including autonomous mode, power-off, hibernate, de-provisioning VMs, and scheduling (auto scaling).
  • Storage: Savings from reduced storage consumption when VMs are powered off or deprovisioned, and when the Autodisk Switching feature is enabled (auto scaling and auto scale disk type).
  • The dollar value of optimization savings achieved relative to the cost without policies.

The system calculates optimization savings by comparing the actual incurred costs against a ceiling cost (what you would pay if VMs ran 24/7). The difference represents the savings achieved through power management features such as VM timeout policies, auto-scaling, and automatic disk switching. For more information about configuring these power management options, see Managing Power Options for Pools and Pool Groups.

The following table describes how each savings category is attributed:

Total Incurred Cost Chart: Displays the total Azure costs for your Horizon Cloud environment during the selected date range. This includes:

• All pool or pool group costs associated with your deployment, depending on the selected view.

• A circular chart providing a visual representation of costs by pool or pool group.

VM Consumption Chart: Presents a bar chart showing the percentage of VMs being actively used within your pools or pool groups over time. This visualization helps you:

• Identify usage patterns and trends across your deployment.

• Understand peak consumption periods when most VMs are in use.

• Determine if your pool groups are appropriately sized (100% consumption indicates all available VMs are being utilized, which is optimal).

• Plan capacity based on historical demand patterns.

Filtering and Date Range Selection

At the top of the Insights tab, you can filter the displayed data.

• Pool / Pool Groups: Choose whether to view cost data by pool or by pool group. Select Pool Groups to filter by one or more specific pool groups (or keep the default All Pool Groups to see aggregate data across your organization), or select Pools to filter by one or more individual pools. When you change this selection, all three charts on the Cost insights page (Optimization savings, Total incurred cost, and VM consumption) update to show data for the selected pools or pool groups.

  Note: If a pool group has been deleted, its ID name remains visible in the Pool Groups dropdown so that you can continue to view historical cost data for that group.

• Date Range: Choose the time period for cost analysis. By default, the page displays data for the last 7 days. A maximum date range of 31 days is supported. The date picker allows you to select custom start and end dates to focus on specific periods of interest.

  Note: When you navigate to detailed views by clicking View Details links, the selected pool or pool group and date range filters are automatically carried forward to the detail pages. These filters remain applied as you navigate between Cost Insights pages until you either change them or navigate away from the Cost Insights section entirely.

Important: Cost insights data may be delayed by up to three days, as indicated in the information banner at the top of the page.

Exporting Data

A Export button is available in the upper right corner of the Cost Insights page. This will let you export the underlying raw cost data to Excel, so admins can move Azure cost data for deeper analysis and reporting.

• You can export data for a selected period of up to 90 days. This export range is independent of the 31-day maximum used for the on-screen Cost Insights charts.
• Exported files are generated and made available through the Download Manager in the console under Monitor > Downloads.

Refreshing Data

A Refresh button is available in the upper right corner of the Cost Insights page. Click this button to retrieve the latest cost insights data from Microsoft Azure. This is useful in rare scenarios where API failures have prevented data from loading correctly, or when you want to ensure you're viewing the most current available information.

Using View Details Links

The Cost Insights page includes three View Details links that provide access to more detailed information:

1. Optimization Savings Chart - View Details Opens the Optimization savings page where you can:

   • View the optimization savings data in both chart and table format.
   • See savings broken down by pool or pool group.
   • Change the pool group selection and date range (filters are inherited from the main Insights page).
   • View detailed savings information, including compute and storage cost reductions.

2. Total Incurred Cost Chart - View Details

3. VM Consumption Chart - View Details

Both View Details links for Total Incurred Cost Chart - View Details and VM Consumption Chart - View Details (two and three above) open the same Cost Details page, which defaults to the By Resources tab and shows the relationship between VM consumption and associated costs.

On this page you can:

• Change the pools/pool group selection and date range (filters are inherited from the main Insights page).

• View the "VM consumption vs cost" chart that displays how consumption patterns relate to incurred costs.

• See both chart and table views of consumption and cost data for each pool or pool group.

• See a new grid showing cost, consumption, and utilization at the individual pool level (pool, parent pool group, cost, consumption, utilization), in addition to the existing pool-group-level grid.

• Analyze which pool or pool groups are incurring the highest costs relative to their utilization.

  Note: To see cost trends, savings, and recommendations for an individual pool you can also go to that pool's details page and select the Insights and Recommendations tab (see Insights and Recommendations Tab (Pool and Pool Group Details) below).

The Cost details page also displays a cost breakdown for different VM sizes within the selected pools or pool groups. This view shows:

• Cost aggregated by VM model at the pool/pool group level.

• Cost components for each VM size, including compute, storage, egress, licensing (if applicable), and other costs.

• The pools associated with each VM size, so that administrators can identify which pools are using a given VM size and resize them if necessary.

  Note: The Cost details page provides insights into the relationship between your VM usage and the resulting Microsoft Azure costs. For information about configuring power management options to optimize costs, refer to Managing Power Options for Pools and Pool Groups.

Also on the Cost Details page, if you click the By Components tab you can view costs broken down by compute and storage on a day-by-day basis.

Viewing Cost Data by Pool, Pools, and/or Pool Groups

On the Cost Insights page, you can view cost, savings, and utilization data at various levels of granularity. The drop-down selection box allows you to filter by a single pool, multiple pools, a single pool group, or multiple pool groups. This targeted view helps you identify specific pools that are driving costs or should be resized, and makes it easy to compare costs across pools and pool groups.

• Use the Pools / Pool Groups selector at the top of the Cost Insights menu page to choose which level of detail to view.

• Selecting Pool Groups shows the existing aggregate view across one or more pool groups.

• Selecting Pools shows the same three metrics (Optimization savings, Total incurred cost, VM consumption) broken out by individual pool.

• Your selection carries forward automatically when you navigate to View Details / Cost details pages, so you don't need to reselect it there.

• On the Cost details page, a pool-level grid (pool, parent pool group, cost, consumption, utilization) is available alongside the existing pool group level grid.

Insights and Recommendations Tab (From the Pools and/or Pool Groups Menu)

To make cost information easier to find while managing a specific pool or pool group, Horizon Cloud adds an Insights and Recommendations tab directly on that pool's or pool group's details page, you no longer need to leave the Pools or Pool Groups menu page and go to the separate Cost insights menu to see its cost picture.

• Location: Pools details page or Pool Groups details page, alongside the existing tabs. (Navigate to: Pools > Select the Pool > Insights & Recommendations tab, or Pool Groups > Select the Pool Group > Insights & Recommendations tab)

• What it shows:

  • For a pool group: the same cost, savings, consumption-trend, and recommendation data that you would otherwise find in Cost Insights, scoped to just that pool group.
  • For an individual pool: inline cost trends, projected optimization savings, and specific pool-level recommendations, scoped to just that pool.

• When to use it: when you're already working within a pool or pool group and want immediate visibility into its cost, savings, and efficiency without switching context or navigating away from the pool or pool group management view.