Manage and Monitor Costs for Microsoft Sentinel

As you use Microsoft Sentinel, it’s important to understand and manage the associated costs. Microsoft Sentinel costs are only a portion of your overall Azure bill, but it’s crucial to monitor them closely to avoid unexpected expenses. This comprehensive guide will walk you through various strategies and tools to help you manage and monitor Microsoft Sentinel costs effectively.

View Costs Using Cost Analysis

The Azure portal’s Cost Management features allow you to view, analyze, and monitor your Microsoft Sentinel costs. You can access these tools by navigating to the Cost Management + Billing hub in the portal. Once there, you can:

  • View your Microsoft Sentinel costs in graphs and tables for different time intervals, such as daily, monthly, and yearly.
  • Analyze your costs against budgets and forecasted expenses to identify spending trends and potential overspending.
  • Apply filters to focus on Microsoft Sentinel-specific costs, such as the Sentinel, Log Analytics, and Azure Monitor service names.

To get started, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Azure portal and navigate to the Cost Management + Billing hub.
  2. In the left-hand menu, select Cost Management.
  3. Choose the appropriate subscription or resource group scope to investigate.
  4. In the Cost Analysis screen, select the desired View (e.g., Accumulated costs or Daily costs), Date range, and Granularity (e.g., Daily).
  5. To view only Microsoft Sentinel-related costs, select Add filter, choose Service name, and then select the relevant services.

By closely monitoring your Microsoft Sentinel costs, you can identify areas for optimization and take proactive steps to control your overall Azure spending.

Run Queries to Understand Data Ingestion

Microsoft Sentinel uses Kusto queries to analyze and derive insights from your operational data. You can leverage these queries to understand your data ingestion volumes and patterns. Here are some examples:

Usage
| where StartTime >= startofday(ago(31d)) and EndTime < startofday(now())
| where IsBillable == true
| summarize BillableDataGB = sum(Quantity) / 1000. by bin(StartTime, 1d), Solution
| extend Solution = iif(Solution == "SecurityInsights