Onboarding Azure Accounts to Yotascale™ Software

To onboard your Azure accounts with Yotascale, we need to make sure your Azure account type meets the minimum criteria, and that you have a user available with the required roles. 

Note: we will ask you to log in to your Azure console from the Yotascale Azure onboarding. We are not storing your credentials. All we need is to get access to your Cost Export Files. The login is to allow us to be able to get access to the Storage Keys for the Container where the Cost Export Files are saved.

Summary of the Steps to Onboard Your Azure Subscriptions

1. To onboard with Yotascale, you need to have an Azure Portal user that has Reader and Data Access (or superior role) to the Subscription where the Billing Export files are stored.

2. Yotascale only needs to read Export Files that are created by Azure daily. No user credentials are stored. We only persist the containers keep that allow reading the Export files.

3. The Export files need to be two: one for Actual cost and one for Amortized cost. These need to be scheduled for “daily export of month-to-date costs”.

Azure-Side Prep Work

Prerequisite 1: Azure account type

Your Azure account must be of the type: EA (Enterprise Agreement). If you have an MCA (Microsoft Customer Agreement) you need to follow the steps from this guide.
We need to be able to access the Cost Export Files in order to get resource usage and costs. If did not yet enable cost Export files this document shows how you can do it.

Prerequisite 2: Azure user that will be used to enroll with Yotascale

These are the roles that are needed for your Azure Billing Account and Subscriptions.
Please note that the roles are done on a per Subscription level and as such you need to have access to each of your Subscriptions to onboard them with Yotascale.

Please note that for the Subscription Reader is not enough because that Role does not give access to the Cost Export Files.
To access the Export files the roles in the table are the only option. This is information is clarified in this Azure document, which shows the roles needed to access the keys to the Storage Blob Data.

To create Export files for an EA account, you need to have an EA admin role. These are the steps to give a user an Enterprise Administrator role.

Setup Permissions to access the Azure Subscription where the Export files are stored

If the user still does not have Reader and Data Access (or a superior Role) to your Subscriptions, please follow these steps.

For the Subscription where the Export Files are stored:

1. Open the Subscriptions page from Search or Menu:

2. Open

   

   Click on the Subscription you want to add

3. Open

   

   Click on Access Control (IAM)

4. Click on “+ Add” to add a Role

5. Add the “Reader and Data Access” Role or a Superior Role. Select the user you want to add

7. Save it and you’re done with Subscription Permissions

Register the Resource Provider for the Azure Subscription where you want to store Cost Export files to allow for CostExport

It may happen (because of security company policy) that the Azure Subscription where you will create Export files is not registered to allow the Export service to run.

If that is the case, you will see an error stating that the Resource is not Registered.

you need to then Register the export service.

From Subscription - Resource Providers, go and “Register” the “Microsoft.CostManagementExports” and “Microsoft.CostManagement” as in this screenshot:

Setup Daily Usage and Purchase Export Files for Actual and Amortized Billing

You need to have Daily Export Files for Usage and Purchase enabled per Subscription so that Yotascale can read your usage and costs details.

For each of your Subscriptions follow these steps to enable the Export Files, in case you have not done it yet.
If you do actually already have created Export, but you see an error showing that we cannot read them, then it is because your IAM Role to the Subscription does not allow us to programmatically read from your Export files.

Please make sure you have one of these permission Roles to your Azure Subscription by following these steps.

To create Export files for a Subscription, you can either follow the steps highlighted below or follow the steps from this Azure guide to creating such an Export. 

This needs to be done for both:

• Actual cost (Usage and Purchases) - Select to export standard usage and purchases

• Amortized cost (Usage and Purchases) - Select to export amortized costs for purchases like Azure reservations 

These are the steps to enable the Cost Export Files for a Subscription:

You can also follow this Azure video or the instructions from this Azure tutorial page.

You do need to have an Enterprise Administrator role to be able to create these cost Exports. This is how that role is assigned.

1. Go to your Cost Management and Billing in your Azure account that you want to onboard with Yotascale

2. Click on “Cost Management”

3. Next click on “Configuration”

4. Click on “Exports”

6. Click on Exports on the left menu at the bottom:

7. Click on “+ Add” to create a new Export

8. Give it a name, e.g. “yotascale-daily-actual”

9.  

10. Make sure you select “Daily export of month-to-date costs”

11. Click on “Next”

12. Fill out the Storage. First, select the Subscription where the Exports will be stored daily.

13. Make sure you fill out all information. These are some examples

15. Or you may see this screen, depending on your EA version:
    
    

16. Then click on “Next”. You will see a summary, and then click in “Create”

17. Repeat these steps to create the “Amortized Costs”

Yotascale Side Steps to Onboard Your Azure Subscriptions

1. Login to your Yotascale account as an “Admin”

2. Go to Settings - Manage Connections

3. Click on “Add Account” and select Azure EA:

4.  

5. Click on:

6. Sign in with the same user mentioned above in the Azure-Side Prerequisites section

7. You may get a popup to confirm your Azure Active Directory:

8. It is possible that you get a “Token Renewal Failed”. In that case, you need to click on Get Token:

9. Select the account which you want to onboard to Yotascale (once we have a token, we will fetch your list of Subscriptions and respective storage accounts)

10. Next, you need to enter the details as highlighted here:

12. Select the correct Subscription ID from the respective drop-down  - this is the Subscription where the Export is being stored.

13. Some of the fields are discovered:

    1. Subscription ID

    2. Storage Account Name

    3. Container Name

    4. Resource ID

14. Some fields you need to copy/paste from your Azure Portal. They must match. We cannot discover them because Azure does not provide a public API for it

    1. Cost Export Name

    2. Directory Name

15. Hit save and you are done.