Understand Your AKS Spending with the Cost Analysis Add-on

This post dives into the AKS Cost Analysis tool, addressing the common challenge of understanding the true cost of an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster, especially for new users.

Limitations of Default Azure Portal Cost Analysis

The standard cost analysis feature in the Azure portal has limitations when it comes to AKS. Users often encounter an error message indicating that it’s only supported for Enterprise Agreement (EA) or Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) subscriptions. Furthermore, the AKS cluster must be using the Standard or Premium tier, not the free tier, to utilize this feature.

Even when access is granted, the subscription’s cost analysis typically displays numerous different resources (like virtual machines, load balancers, virtual networks, and storage) that make up an AKS cluster. This broad view makes it challenging to isolate the exact costs attributable solely to the AKS cluster. The default analysis only provides total costs, lacking specific breakdowns for individual resources or detailed utilization metrics.

Enabling AKS Cost Analysis

To gain deeper insights into your AKS spending, you need to enable the AKS Cost Analysis add-on. This is done using the Azure CLI:

• Use the az aks create command when creating a new cluster, or az aks update for an existing one.
• Include the --enable-cost-analysis parameter.
• Remember to provide your resource group and the name of your AKS cluster in the command.

Benefits of AKS Cost Analysis

Once enabled, the AKS Cost Analysis tool provides invaluable insights:

• Detailed Cost Breakdown: It displays a granular breakdown of costs for all resources within your AKS cluster. You can see specific costs for components like Virtual Machine Scale Sets, load balancers, public IP addresses, and even data transfer (bandwidth).
• Idle vs. Used Cost Identification: A key feature is the breakdown of costs into “Idle” and “Used” categories. This helps identify wasted expenditure. For example, if a virtual machine incurs a certain cost, the tool will show how much of that cost is associated with active usage versus idle time. This clearly highlights opportunities to optimize spending, such as scaling down the cluster by running fewer or smaller nodes.

The AKS Cost Analysis tool is highly recommended for its ease of installation, comprehensive insights into resource usage, and its ability to help identify cost optimization opportunities. It also serves as an excellent resource for new developers looking to understand the complex composition and associated costs of their AKS clusters.

This post was AI-generated based on the transcript of the video “Understand Your AKS Spending with the Cost Analysis Add-on” and reviewed by me.

Video - Understand Your AKS Spending with the Cost Analysis Add-on