Azure Automation Service Charges

Aryaa Kotian 0

I have automation set up in 2 different tenant, both are for database scale up and scale down i.e. between S2 and S4 which is scheduled at 7 AM to scale up and 7 PM to scale down., but still the execution time is very different for both of them, 1 takes 2-5 mins which also includes app service plan scale up/down but the other takes 15 mins to only scale up/down the database. This becomes the reason my cost also increases.
Also I am only using automation service to scale up or scale down and nothing else, powershell is used, and usually job runtime is less than 500 mins but still i am getting charged for automation service, currently for NOV period its almost INR. 40 only for database scale up and down.
whereas, DB + App service scaled up and scale down took only INR 11 up till now for the NOV period.
I really didn't understand Y am i being charged as i have only 2 runbooks in each tenant and 2 schedules.
how can i reduce or not get charged for automating scale up and down process?

SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 47,496 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-11-28T14:53:26.3566667+00:00

@Aryaa Kotian We do not control the script duration, it completely depends on the code written in the runbook. You would have to look for ways to optimize your script code for it to run faster and look at the time taken by other resources to scale up/down.

FYI: 500 mins free is per subscription and not per account.
Aryaa Kotian 0 Reputation points

2024-11-29T03:52:10.47+00:00

@SadiqhAhmed-MSFT Yes I understand the script duration is not controlled, and yes if the scripts were different I could definitely understand that the script is taking long time to execute but it is the same script i used to scale up/down DB in different tenant and it hardly took 2-5 mins where as in Tenant A it took 15 mins for the same script for DB.
Also I am aware after reading the documentation that 500 mins are free per subscription but I have not yet completed that 500 mins and I can still see charges for the automation service as you can see in the image attached below which is a new subscription where i am using automation that to for testing purpose but still can see there are charges incurred.
I did do my research on this and according to that found that it generates some logs for which I will be charged be it within the 500 mins or after. now i am not sure if this is a valid information but if it is, is there a way to stop it cause i can understand that i be charged for extra mins after the 500 but before that doesn't make any sense.
Am i being charged for schedules? am i being charged for some logs? am i being charged for something or anything else when using the runbook to only scale up or scale down?
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 47,496 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-11-29T05:09:49.3033333+00:00

@Aryaa Kotian Thanks for sharing the details. Regarding your concern about the charges you noticed in Tenant A, you can reach out to Azure support for further clarification. Here is the link - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-portal/supportability/how-to-create-azure-support-request to create support case.

Please see the response to your questions below:

Am i being charged for schedules?
There are no charges for schedules themselves. Charges are incurred based on the job run time minutes used by the runbooks.

am i being charged for some logs?
You are only charged for the log data stored in the Azure Log Analytics service. There are no additional charges for the service itself

am i being charged for something or anything else when using the runbook to only scale up or scale down?
Charges for process automation are based on the number of job run time minutes used in the month. The first 500 minutes are free, and beyond that, the cost is $0.002 per minute.

1 answer

Nandan Hegde 32,831 Reputation points MVP

2024-11-28T04:41:21.66+00:00

Below is the costing for Azure automation :

Can you definitely confirm that throughout your month, your overall time across all automations didnt exceed 500 mins?

Also, scaling of database is impacted based on factors :

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/603284/slow-database-performance-slow-scaling

So the time might vary for the same
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Aryaa Kotian 0 Reputation points

2024-11-28T05:22:39.0266667+00:00

In regards to tenant A, 2 runbook, 2 schedules, for the DB scale up/down is done between S0-S2 and for tenant B, 2 runbooks, 2 schedules, for DB and App service scale up/down and Application gateway scale out/in, DB = S2-S4, App service = P0V3-P2V3, AppGateway = 1 instance - 2 instance, both are scheduled for 7 AM scale up and 7 PM scale down and both take 15 mins to execute the same. So now i don't understand why is it taking this long for Tenant A which only scales up/down DB.
Also I can confirm that my overall time does not exceed 500 mins as i have created new account in which I was just using the service to test the automation which might be hardly used less than 300 mins throughout the month which is also a high number that I mentioned but still there was a charge of INR 3.94.
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Azure Automation Service Charges

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