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Open data for FinOps

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Reporting is the life-blood of any FinOps initiative. And your reports are only as good as your data. It's why data ingestion is such an important part of FinOps (and any big data effort). The following datasets can be used to clean and normalize your data as part of data ingestion, reporting, or other solutions.


Pricing units

Microsoft Cost Management uses the UnitOfMeasure column to indicate how each charge is measured. It can be in singular or distinct units or can be grouped into chunks based on applicable block pricing rules. As a string, the UnitOfMeasure column can be challenging to parse and handle all the different permutations and inconsistencies. The Pricing units file provides a list of values you might find within common cost-related datasets, for example, Cost Management exports and price sheets. It also has their related distinct unit and block size or scaling factor to compare pricing to usage units.

Sample data:

UnitOfMeasure AccountTypes PricingBlockSize DistinctUnits
1 Hour MCA, EA 1 Hours
10000 GB EA 10000 GB
150 Hours EA 150 Hours
200 /Hour EA 200 Units/Hour
5 GB MCA, EA 5 GB
5000000 Requests EA 5000000 Requests
744 Connections EA 744 Connections

A few important notes about the data:

  • Meter names aren't included to keep the file size down.
  • The default unit type is Units.
  • Some default units might include a more specific unit in the meter name, which isn't accounted here since meter names aren't included.
  • Marketplace meters aren't included due to inconsistencies that would affect data size.

Note

In the Cost Management FOCUS dataset, UnitOfMeasure is renamed to x_PricingUnitDescription. Both PricingUnit and UsageUnit in FOCUS are set to the DistictUnits column.

Download PricingUnits.csv   See PowerShell


Regions

Microsoft Cost Management provides various values for resource locations that are occasionally inconsistent due to different underlying systems providing the data. The Regions file provides a list of values you might find within common cost-related datasets (for example, Cost Management exports and price sheets) along with their related Azure region IDs and names.

Sample data:

OriginalValue RegionId RegionName
ap east eastasia East Asia
ca central canadacentral Canada Central
de north germanynorth Germany North
no west norwaywest Norway West
tw north taiwannorth Taiwan North

Download Regions.csv   See PowerShell

Note

Convert region values to lowercase before mapping. This helps reduce duplication and speed up the mapping process.


Resource types

Azure resource types are a semi-readable code that represents what kind of resource it is. Currently, there's no mapping of the resource type to a user-friendly string, description, or its icon. The ResourceTypes file provides a list of resource type values you see in the Azure portal along with their display names, description, and a link to the icon, when available.

Sample data:

ResourceType Singular Display Name Plural Display Name Lower Singular Display Name Lower Plural Display Name
microsoft.compute/virtualmachines Virtual machine Virtual machines virtual machine virtual machines
microsoft.insights/workbooks Azure Workbook Azure Workbooks Azure workbook Azure workbooks
microsoft.logic/workflows Logic app Logic apps logic app logic apps
microsoft.network/virtualnetworks Virtual network Virtual networks virtual network virtual networks
microsoft.recoveryservices/vaults Recovery Services vault Recovery Services vaults recovery services vault recovery services
microsoft.search/searchservices Search service Search services search service search services
microsoft.sql/servers SQL server SQL servers SQL server SQL servers
microsoft.sql/servers/databases SQL database SQL databases SQL database SQL databases
microsoft.web/sites App Service web app App Service web apps app service app services

Note

Convert resource type values to lowercase before mapping. This helps reduce duplication and speed up the mapping process.

Download ResourceTypes.csv   Download ResourceTypes.json   See PowerShell


Services

In Microsoft Cost Management, ConsumedService represents the primary service or resource provider of the resource you used. It's roughly the same as ServiceName in FOCUS. In some cases, multiple services share the same resource provider, so we're using the ConsumedService and ResourceType columns to map to ServiceName and ServiceCategory values for use within FOCUS.

Sample data:

ConsumedService ResourceType ServiceName ServiceCategory ServiceSubcategory PublisherName PublisherType Environment ServiceModel
microsoft.compute microsoft.compute/virtualmachines Virtual Machines Compute Virtual Machines Microsoft Cloud Provider Cloud IaaS
microsoft.documentdb microsoft.documentdb/databaseaccounts Cosmos DB Databases NoSQL Databases Microsoft Cloud Provider Cloud PaaS
microsoft.kusto microsoft.kusto/clusters Azure Data Explorer Analytics Analytics Platforms Microsoft Cloud Provider Cloud PaaS
microsoft.network microsoft.network/virtualnetworks Virtual Network Networking Networking Infrastructure Microsoft Cloud Provider Cloud IaaS
microsoft.storage microsoft.storage/storageaccounts Storage Accounts Storage Storage Platforms Microsoft Cloud Provider Cloud IaaS

A few important notes about the data:

  • ConsumedService and ResourceType values are all lowercased to avoid case sensitivity issues.
  • ServiceName values should match the product marketing name for the closest possible service. Some services reuse resource types and can't be distinguished from the resource type alone (for example, Azure functions show as App Service).
  • ServiceCategory values are aligned with the allowed values in FOCUS.

Note

Most mappings can rely on resource type alone. In a future update, we will merge this list with Resource types to provide only a single dataset. Currently, the only known case where resource type is shared that ConsumedService can help identify is for Microsoft Defender for Cloud. To simplify your mapping, you can only map those 5 rows and rely on a resource type mapping for everything else.


Dataset examples

The following files are examples of what you see when you export data from Microsoft Cost Management. These files are provided to help you understand the data structure and format. They are from an Enterprise Agreement (EA) demo account and aren't intended to be used for ingestion or reporting.

  • Cost and usage
    • Actual (billed) (2021-10-01)
    • Amortized (2021-10-01)
    • FOCUS (1.0)
    • FOCUS (1.0-preview(v1))
  • Prices (2023-05-01)
  • Reservation details (2023-03-01)
  • Reservation transactions (2023-05-01)
  • Reservation recommendations (2023-05-01)

Download all examples


Dataset metadata

Given each dataset uses different columns and data types, FOCUS defines the metadata schema to describe the dataset. Dataset metadata includes general information about the data like the data generator, schema version, and columns included in the dataset.

Sample data:

ColumnName DataType Description
BilledCost Decimal A charge serving as the basis for invoicing, inclusive of all reduced rates and discounts while excluding the amortization of upfront charges (one-time or recurring).
BillingAccountId String Unique identifier assigned to a billing account by the provider.
BillingAccountName String Display name assigned to a billing account.
BillingCurrency String Currency that a charge was billed in.
BillingPeriodEnd DateTime End date and time of the billing period.
BillingPeriodStart DateTime Beginning date and time of the billing period.

Metadata is available for the following datasets:

Download all metadata


Looking for more?

We'd love to hear about any datasets you're looking for. Create a new issue with the details that you'd like to see either included in existing or new datasets.

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