Exercise - Create your first budget

  • 10 minutes

Now that you've learned how to create a budget, it's time to create your first one on your own. You should have determined your most expensive resource in a previous exercise. If this resource starts accruing more cost, you could see a higher bill at the end of the month. In this exercise, you create a budget to help ensure that costs are monitored. When costs exceed the budget, email alerts are sent to people responsible.

Important

You need your own Azure subscription to run this exercise, and you might incur charges. If you don't already have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Access the Azure portal

To start, sign in to the Azure portal using the following step.

Next, in the Azure portal, we go to Budgets.

  1. In the portal search box, enter Subscriptions.

  2. In the list of services, select Subscriptions.

  3. In the list of subscriptions, select the subscription that you analyzed in the previous exercise. The subscription contains your most expensive resource.

  4. In the menu, under Cost Management, select Budgets. The Budgets pane appears.

Configure your budget

Next, create a budget.

  1. From the top menu, select Add, and then, under Budget scoping, select Add filter.

  2. From the Filter dropdown list, select ResourceId.

  3. In the selection dropdown list, select your most expensive resource that you identified in the previous exercise. A suggested budget appears. The budget is associated with your selection.

  4. Name your budget (for example: MyFirstBudget).

  5. Set the Reset period to Monthly.

  6. Examine the Budget Amount recommendation based on your filter. Then, analyze the View of monthly cost data graph to determine if the threshold meets your needs.

  7. Optionally, change the budget amount to any value that you like.

  8. When you've decided on a budget amount, select Next.

Configure a budget alert threshold

Lastly, configure a budget threshold, and specify an email address for alert notification.

  1. Configure the alert condition for 90% of the budget. Don't specify an action group.

  2. Enter your email address in the Alert recipients (email) section.

  3. Examine the View of monthly cost data graph, and verify that the alert threshold is correct.

  4. Select Create.