Azure Cost and Usage Export

This guide shows you how to give Spotter access to your detailed Azure cost and usage data. You create one storage account, grant the Spotter application access to it and enter the details in Spotter. Spotter then creates and reads the exports for every subscription automatically.

Setup is done once.

What you will set up

1. A storage account and a container for the exported files.

2. Role assignments for the Spotter application.

3. Five values to enter in Spotter.

Before you start

• You need an account that can create resources and assign roles in your subscriptions — Owner, or User Access Administrator with * Contributor*.

• The Spotter application is already in your Azure tenant from your original onboarding. You only add roles to it.

Step 1 — Create the storage account and container

1. In the Azure portal, search for Storage accounts and select Create.

2. Choose a subscription and a new resource group, e.g. rg-spotter-cost-exports.

3. Name the account, e.g. spottercostexports, and pick a region close to your resources.

4. Keep the defaults: a Standard, general-purpose v2 account.

5. Leave network access at its default (Enable public access from all networks).

6. Create the account. Open it, go to Data storage → Containers → + Container, name it (e.g. cost-exports), and create it.

Step 2 — Grant the Spotter application access

For each role: open the scope, go to Access control (IAM) → Add → Add role assignment, pick the role, then under Members search for Spotter.

Assigning Cost Management Contributor at the management group covers all subscriptions under it.

Step 3 — Enter the details in Spotter

In Spotter, go to Admin → Integrations → Azure, open your tenant, and on the Details tab find Cost and usage exports and select Edit. Enter these five values and save:

You may also email the details to us to spotter@cloud2.fi.

What happens next

Once all five values are saved, Spotter picks up your tenant automatically. It creates a daily export in each of your subscriptions and starts loading the data — the first files usually appear within a day or a few. You don't need to manage any exports yourself.

Alternative: create the exports yourself

If you can't grant Owner, create the exports yourself and grant Spotter only Storage Blob Data Reader on the storage account and Cost Management Reader on your subscriptions (or the management group over them). Create one export per subscription with these settings:

Then enter the five values in Spotter as in Step 3.