Get consumption data for an Azure subscription

  • Article

 

Enables you to query aggregate Azure subscription consumption data by:

  • Start and end date/time

  • Aggregation granularity (ie: daily, hourly)

  • Instance level detail (ie: for multiple instances of the same resource)

Important

The metadata associated with the billing meters, including but not limited to service names, types, resources, units of measure, and regions, is subject to change at any time and without notice. If you intend to use this billing data in an automated fashion, please use the billing meter GUID to uniquely identify each billable item. If the billing meter GUID is scheduled to change due to a new billing model, you will be notified in advance of the change.

Request

See the Common parameters and headers section in Resource Usage (Preview) for headers and parameters that are used by all requests related to the Resource Usage API.

Method

Request URI

GET

https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscription-Id}/providers/Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregates?api-version={api-version}&reportedStartTime={dateTimeOffset-value}&reportedEndTime={dateTimeOffset-value}&aggregationGranularity={granularity-value}&showDetails={showdetail-boolean-Value}&continuationToken={token-value}

  • Set {dateTimeOffset-value} for reportedStartTime and reportedEndTime to valid dateTime values. Please note that this dateTimeOffset value represents the timestamp at which the resource usage was recorded within the Azure billing system. As Azure is a distributed system, spanning across 19 datacenters around the world, there is bound to be a delay between the resource usage time (when the resource was actually consumed) and the resource usage reported time (when the usage event reached the billing system) and callers need a predictable way to get all usage events for a subscription for a given time period. For that reason, we ask callers to query by Reported Time to ensure that they get all the usage events reported within a specific time period within the billing system. Even though the query is made with the Reported Time, the usage response is aggregated by the resource usage time, which is the useful pivot for callers. To learn more, please see the FAQ section.

    Important

    Please note that the dateTime value format must be URL encoded as ISO 8601 format, and non-numeric characters must use escape codes (i.e. colon is escaped to %3a, plus sign is escaped to %2b) so that it is URI friendly. These refer to the start and end time ranges of your query. This dateTime parameter must also be specified in Universal Time Coordinated (UTC).

  • Set {aggregationGranularity} to either ‘Daily’ or ‘Hourly’. This is an optional parameter with two discrete potential values: Daily and Hourly. As the values suggest, the former one returns the data in daily granularity whereas the latter one is hourly resolution. Daily is the default.

  • Set {showDetails} to either true or false. This is an optional Boolean flag, which can be configured to specify whether the caller wants instance-level details with the usage data. By default, this is set to true. By setting this flag to false, there will be fewer aggregates returned by the API, as the service will do server-side aggregation. For example, if you are running 3 websites (web1, web2, web3), by default you will get 3 line items for website consumption. If you specify showDetails = false, then we will do further aggregation and provide a single line item for website consumption for that particular time period. Setting this flag to false, collapses all the data for the same subscriptionId, meterId, usageStartTime and usageEndTime to be single data aggregate only.

  • Set {continuationToken} to the continuation token string as retrieved from the response body in the previous call. This is the bookmark for progress when you are working with a large result set. Usage API responses are paged with continuation tokens, and this parameter expects the value of the token retrieved from the last call to Usage API provider. If not present, the data is retrieved from the beginning of the day/hour (based on the granularity) passed in. The recommended way to page through response is to follow the next link in the response.

There is no request body.

Response

Sample Responses

Below are examples of HTTP responses, which include the request URL and associated substitution values for query parameters with proper encoding for dateTime parameter values, as well as the corresponding JSON encoded response body.

https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscription-Id}/providers/Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregates?api-version=2015-06-01-preview\&reportedStartTime=2014-05-01T00%3a00%3a00%2b00%3a00\&reportedEndTime=2015-06-01T00%3a00%3a00%2b00%3a00\&aggregationGranularity=Daily\&showDetails=false

{
    "value": [
        {
            "id": "/subscriptions/f68815e6-3c41-45ef-bbd8-5f83303c396b/providers/Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregates/Daily_BRSDF_20140501_0000",
            "name": "Daily_BRSDF_20140501_0000",
            "type": "Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregate",
            "properties": {
                "subscriptionId": "f68815e6-3c41-45ef-bbd8-5f83303c396b",
                "usageStartTime": "2015-03-03T00:00:00+00:00",
                "usageEndTime": "2015-03-04T00:00:00+00:00",
                "meterName": "Standard IO – Page Blob/Disk (GB)",
                "meterCategory": "Storage",
                "meterSubCategory": "Geo Redundant",
                "unit": "GB",
                "meterId": "0e9d0c9b-ab6d-4312-9c7e-3794e22af9c4",
                "infoFields": {
                },
                "quantity": 0.057865
            }
        },
…

The following example is the same as the one above, but with showDetails=true, which provides additional details for the infoFields element :

https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscription-Id}/providers/Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregates?api-version=2015-06-01-preview\&reportedStartTime=2014-05-01T00%3a00%3a00%2b00%3a00\&reportedEndTime=2015-06-01T00%3a00%3a00%2b00%3a00\&aggregationGranularity=Daily\&showDetails=true

{
    "value": [
        {
            "id": "/subscriptions/f68815e6-3c41-45ef-bbd8-5f83303c396b/providers/Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregates/Daily_BRSDT_20140501_0000",
            "name": "Daily_BRSDT_20140501_0000",
            "type": "Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregate",
            "properties": {
                "subscriptionId": "f68815e6-3c41-45ef-bbd8-5f83303c396b",
                "usageStartTime": "2015-03-03T00:00:00+00:00",
                "usageEndTime": "2015-03-04T00:00:00+00:00",
                "meterName": "Standard IO – Page Blob/Disk (GB)",
                "meterCategory": "Storage",
                "meterSubCategory": "Geo Redundant",
                "unit": "GB",
                "meterId": "0e9d0c9b-ab6d-4312-9c7e-3794e22af9c4",
                "infoFields": {
                    "meteredRegion": "West US",
                    "meteredService": "Storage",
                    "project": "devtestvhdsd37a7bb567f9"
                },
                "quantity": 0.057865
            }
        },
…

Below is a sample showing the new response format, which implements the “instanceData” element, providing instance-level details including resource tags and the resource URI. The “instanceData” element will also replace the current “infoFields” element. Currently, we are in a state of transition between the old version and the new version, and we expect all Azure resources to move over to the new format:

{
  "value": [
        {
      "id": "/subscriptions/d657c399-e17c-405d-859e-9f2efb6462e5/providers/Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregates/Daily_BRSDT_20150515_0000",
      "name": "Daily_BRSDT_20150515_0000",
      "type": "Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregate",
      "properties": {
        "subscriptionId": "d657c399-e17c-405d-859e-9f2efb6462e5",
        "usageStartTime": "2015-05-15T00:00:00+00:00",
        "usageEndTime": "2015-05-16T00:00:00+00:00",
        "instanceData": "{\"Microsoft.Resources\":{\"resourceUri\":\"/subscriptions/d657c399-e17c-405d-859e-9f2efb6462e5/resourceGroups/moinakrg/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/moinakstorage\",\"location\":\"West US\",\"tags\":{\"department\":\"hr\"}}}",
        "meterName": "Storage Transactions (in 10,000s)",
        "meterCategory": "Data Management",
        "unit": "10,000s",
        "meterId": "964c283a-83a3-4dd4-8baf-59511998fe8b",
        "infoFields": {

        },
        "quantity": 9.8390
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "/subscriptions/d657c399-e17c-405d-859e-9f2efb6462e5/providers/Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregates/Daily_BRSDT_20150515_0000",
      "name": "Daily_BRSDT_20150515_0000",
      "type": "Microsoft.Commerce/UsageAggregate",
      "properties": {
        "subscriptionId": "d657c399-e17c-405d-859e-9f2efb6462e5",
        "usageStartTime": "2015-05-15T00:00:00+00:00",
        "usageEndTime": "2015-05-16T00:00:00+00:00",
        "instanceData": "{\"Microsoft.Resources\":{\"resourceUri\":\"/subscriptions/d657c399-e17c-405d-859e-9f2efb6462e5/resourceGroups/moinakrg/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/moinakstorage\",\"location\":\"West US\",\"tags\":{\"department\":\"hr\"}}}",
        "meterName": "Data Transfer In (GB)",
        "meterRegion": "Zone 1",
        "meterCategory": "Networking",
        "unit": "GB",
        "meterId": "32c3ebec-1646-49e3-8127-2cafbd3a04d8",
        "infoFields": {

        },
        "quantity": 0.000066
      }
    }, 
…

JSON Element Definitions

Below is the list of possible JSON data elements you will find in the HTTP response body.

Element Name

Description

Id

Unique Id for the usage aggregate.

name

Name of the usage aggregate.

subscriptionId

The subscription identifier for the Azure user.

meterId

Unique ID for the resource that was consumed (aka ResourceID).

usageStartTime

UTC start time for the usage bucket to which this usage aggregate belongs.

usageEndTime

UTC end time for the usage bucket to which this usage aggregate belongs.

Quantity

The amount of the resource consumption that occurred in this time frame.

Unit

The unit in which the usage for this resource is being counted, e.g. Hours, GB.

meterName

Friendly name of the resource being consumed.

meterCategory

Category of the consumed resource.

meterSubCategory

Sub-category of the consumed resource.

meterRegion

Region of the meterId used for billing purposes.

infoFields

Key-value pairs of instance details (legacy format).

This field captures the key value pairs to store the instance level details in the legacy format. The most important item here is ‘Project’ because this carries the name of the instance provisioned by the user. If we spun up a website and called it “azuretestvm1”, the string “azuretestvm1” would show up as a value for Project for the website events for this website. For the resource metadata that is added in the info fields, please take a dependence on the higher level resource metadata (meterName, meterCategory, meterSubCategory, unit, meterRegion).

instanceData

Key-value pairs of instance details (new format. See the FAQ section below for more details on the difference between the current infoFields design and the future instanceData design):

  • resourceUri: This is the fully qualified resource ID, which includes the resource groups and the instance name.

  • tags: Contains the resource tags specified by the user.

  • location: The region in which this service was run.

  • additionalInfo: More details about the resource being consumed. For example, OS version, Image Type.

  • partNumber: Unique namespace used to identify the resource for Azure Marketplace 3rd party usage

  • orderNumber: Unique ID that represents the 3rd party order identifier. Presence of an orderNumber states that this usage record was incurred on a resource owned by a 3rd party and not Microsoft.

Response Codes

HTTP Status Code

Error Code

Description

200/OK

n/a

Normal response for a successful query. The response body will contain the data that matches the filters specified in the query parameters.

202/Accepted

ProcessingNotCompleted

The data requested has not yet been processed. Please try again in {0} minutes.

This error is thrown when the data being requested is not ready to be consumed by the user yet, as it has not yet been fully processed. {0} will be replaced with an integer representing the number of minutes the user should wait before trying the call again.

400/BadRequest

InvalidInput

Error Message: Header {0} was missing or had an unacceptable value.

This is a generic error message for an invalid or missing header. {0} will be replaced with the header name.

400/BadRequest

InvalidInput

Error Message: Parameter {0} was missing or had an unacceptable value.

This is a generic error message for an invalid or missing parameter. {0} will be replaced with the parameter name.

400/BadRequest

InvalidInput

Error Message: {0} cannot be in the future.

Occurs when a requested time parameter is in the future. {0} will be replaced with the time parameter that was invalid (reportedStartTime or reportedEndDateTime)

400/BadRequest

InvalidInput

Error Message: reportedStartTime must be earlier than reportedEndTime.

Occurs when the requested reportedStartDateTime is not chronologically earlier than reportedEndDateTime.

400/BadRequest

InvalidInput

Error Message: The {0} for daily aggregation granularity must have the time set to midnight (0:00:00Z).

This error is thrown when the requested time parameter is not on an exact day (midnight) when daily granularity is requested. {0} will be replaced with the time parameter that was not on an exact day (reportedStartTime or reportedEndDateTime)

400/BadRequest

InvalidInput

Error Message: The {0} for hourly aggregation granularity needs to have the time set using only the hours portion, with zeroes for minutes (1:00:00Z, 2:00:00Z, 3:00:00Z, etc.).

This error is thrown when the requested time parameter is not on an exact hour when hourly granularity is requested. {0} will be replaced with the time parameter that was not on an exact hour (reportedStartTime or reportedEndDateTime)

401/Unauthorized

AuthorizationError

Error Message: The HTTP request was forbidden with client authentication scheme ‘Anonymous’.

This will be displayed when the user is not authorized to view the content. Please see the main Azure Billing REST API Reference (Preview) article for additional details on securing your calls, and obtaining and specifying a secure access token.

500/Internal Server Error

UnknownError

Error Message: An unknown error has occurred. Reference #: {0}

This will be displayed as a generic error message when a better one does not exist. {0} will be a reference number that can be used to look up the error details in our logs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question

Answer

What is the difference between Usage Time and Reported Time?

There are 2 different time concepts involved in understanding consumption data:

  • Reported DateTime: This is the timestamp at which the Azure usage event was recorded in the billing system. This is the timestamp that is used to determine whether a particular usage event made it into a billing cycle, or whether it was dropped due to lateness.

  • Usage DateTime: This is the timestamp of the actual consumption of the Azure resource.

At the time of this writing, Azure has 19 Data Centers around the world where customers can run their workloads. Because of this distributed nature, there is a difference between the Usage DateTime and the Reported DateTime for a particular usage event. Although the Azure service providers will move to reporting the usage events at the earliest convenience (every hour), that is not the case today, and there can be multiple hours of delay between the usage DateTime and the reported DateTime for a particular usage event.

Important

Currently, we allow callers to query by reported DateTime ONLY.

Why not just query by Usage Date?

As there can be delay in when the usage events make it into the commerce system (and hence available through this Azure Usage API), querying by usage date can provide incomplete information to callers.

For example, if a caller queried for usage date of 4/2 on 4/3 for particular resource, he would probably get X units back (X is sum of the usage quantities that were reported by 4/3), but if he made the same query on 4/10, there is a chance that there could be a different number (say Y). If callers took that as deterministic and didn’t check for late usage for usage date 4/2, they would have incomplete information.

That is why, querying by reported DateTime is deterministic, in that callers can query every hour and deterministically get all the usage events recorded in the billing system in the previous hour, and then keep shifting the reported DateTime parameters forward. The response of the usage events is always aggregated by usage date time, so even though you query by reported Date time, you can get a very good idea of when the particular resources were actually consumed.

What does Azure do with late usage? Does it throw it away?

Azure does discard late usage, but the lateness policies are different for different offer types:

Typically, a 24-hour lateness period is allowed, but usage that comes in the grace period is billed in the following month.

  • Usage for billing period 4/12 – 5/11 reported within the commerce system by 5/12 00:00:00 UTC: Goes on the 5/11 bill to the subscription owner. Usage is reported on time.

  • Usage for billing period 4/12 – 5/11 reported within the commerce system between 5/12 00:00:00 and 5/13 00:00:00- charge goes on the 6/11 bill to the subscription owner. Usage is reported within the allowed lateness period but the usage reported within the grace period is moved to the next month’s bill.

  • Usage for billing period 4/12 – 5/11 reported within the commerce system after 5/13 00:00:00 – usage discarded and not considered for billing. Usage reported after the allowed lateness period, so discarded by the billing system. 

Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers have a different behavior- the EA system waits for 5 days to receive all the usage data before they close the previous cycle. Behavior for EA subscriptions is otherwise similar except they have a lateness period of 5 days after the end of the month (1/1 – 1/31, usage accepted till 2/5 UTC).

What is the recommended frequency to make calls to the Usage API?

Here is the basic guidance:

  • If you query every hour or every day: you should query every hour/day by reported DateTime and store the data locally according to the usage data. This should be treated as volatile data as this can change with late, incoming usage.

  • If you only query at the end of the billing cycle: your usage query should be different for different offer types with reported time, and since the usage response is aggregated by usage DateTime, you should discard the usage aggregations that don’t fall into the billing cycle that you are concerned with.

What is the difference between the format in the current ‘infoFields’ JSON element in the response body, and the future ‘instanceData’ field?

For each usage aggregate, you will either see infoFields or instanceData. infoFields captures only a subset of the information provided by instanceData (ie: infoFields does not capture resource tags). We are working to move all Azure service providers to the new format to capture and push through more attributes of the usage data. The design moving forward will use instanceData to provide all instance details for the related usage events, which will also support resource groups and tags

See Also

Resource RateCard (Preview)
Azure Billing Usage and RateCard APIs Overview