Adeelaziz shares a practical method for identifying hidden costs in Azure by analyzing backup data with Power BI and PowerShell, providing tips for optimizing cloud storage spend.

Mine Your Azure Backup Data to Identify Hidden Costs

Author: Adeelaziz

Managing cloud costs requires diligent monitoring, especially with backup data that may outlive its purpose. In this post, I share how unused (or ‘orphaned’) Azure backups can result in unnecessary charges—and how leveraging Power BI and PowerShell let me uncover and address this issue.

The Problem: Orphaned Backups

Azure backups can become orphaned in several ways:

  • Forgotten one-time backups
  • Deleted VMs where the backup service is still running
  • Workloads removed from protection due to policy changes
  • Resource migrations where backups are left behind

These backups don’t always serve a purpose, but as long as they’re retained, you may continue paying for them.

Discovery Process

  1. Data Collection:
    • Used the Azure Business Continuity Center for core backup data
    • Wrote a PowerShell script to extract LastBackupTime and other relevant metadata from backups
  2. Analysis and Visualization:
    • Imported datasets into Power BI
    • Built visualizations to show backup usage trends over time
    • Flagged backups with no recent activity or whose related resources no longer exist

Results and Cost Optimization

With this approach, I was able to:

  • Identify and remove forgotten or obsolete backups
  • Track when workloads were excluded due to policy changes
  • Detect and act on backups left after resource migrations

With Azure’s soft-delete enabled, deleting unwanted backups drops the billed storage to zero, preventing further charges.

Recommendations

  • Routinely audit your Azure backup inventory
  • Visualize backup activity and cross-reference with current workloads
  • Use automation (PowerShell) for regular metadata extraction
  • Take action on backups without a valid purpose

Do your backups have an untold story? Begin exploring your data and you might save more than you think!

This post appeared first on “Microsoft Tech Community”. Read the entire article here