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I've been horrified at how bad this is on Azure, I'm sorry to hear that AWS has the same issue. I've signed in some mornings only to discover that I've been ch

I've been horrified at how bad this is on Azure, I'm sorry to hear that AWS has the same issue. I've signed in some mornings only to discover that I've been charged $20 for a MongoDB instance that's been sitting idle all night. Support can only come back with some hand-waving about RUs, a term that defies any clear definition.

zaidf 6y ago
This is a problem across enterprise SaaS companies. At my last company (small enterprise SaaS biz <$50M ARR), I got so tired of this consuming so much of my time. I literally hacked together some code so I could point at any line item from any bill generated by our "system" and it would try to answer "why did I get billed $x for this?" so a five year old could understand. I wish there were SaaS products that would effortlessly audit enterprise SaaS bills with support for more than just the top 1% SaaS products.
- doorstar 6y ago
  I was poking around with their CLI to see if I could put together a cron job - this artifact now costs more than $X so delete it. Unfortunately if there's a 'get current charges' command I haven't found it. I have a ticket open with MS support. I suppose it's to their credit that they're listening to me but it's been a few weeks with only the aforementioned hand-waving. I started just sending them screenshots showing that their own dashboard showed no usage during the times I'd gotten charged.
FridgeSeal 6y ago
Dealing with Azure causes me physical pain. AWS you can poke around and figure it out, Azure is a Kafkaesque nightmare of infinitely confusing UI/UX, a permission system that is like trying to hit a moving target in a dark room, being moved by someone that hates you, doing anything seems needlessly complex, and trying to replicate/test anything locally is horrible (looking at you Azure functions).
- doorstar 6y ago
  My sibling... I'm trapped in this mess because the nature of our Client is that they'd consider anything besides Azure as a slap in the face, but it's been absolutely the most miserable task I've taken on in years. As a bonus I'm getting side-eyed by teammates who have a naive faith in The Cloud and can't comprehend why this is taking so long and why I can't just give them a cost estimate.
  - qchris 6y ago
    As an aside, unless I'm reading this very wrong, this is the first time I've seen the use of "my sibling" as a gender-neutral replacement of "my brother/sister" to express empathy. I'm delighted by it.
- lucianf 6y ago
  Semi-shameless plug (I work for Oracle) but have you tried OCI? You might find both the console UI/UX and the cloud calculator pretty decent. That's just my personal feel, coming over to work as an Oracle cloud consultant with previous AWS/Azure experience. I'd argue it's normal those two are where they are; AWS is now a spaghetti of products, while Microsoft are anti-KISS by DNA.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Yes people who want to avoid lock in really want to get in bed with “call us for pricing” Oracle.
    - lucianf 6y ago
      Point taken. Every time Oracle is mentioned it's in the context of horror licensing stories. I get that - but would it make a difference if I said OCI is actually different? Take this with as much salt as you want but they're really trying to put that in the past. OCI pricing is super transparent, simple metrics, cheaper than the incumbents on every front, there's no "call us for pricing", there's a transparent 30% discount for committed spending (before you even get to talk to a salesperson) and the dev team has been given free reign to act like a startup and ignore the corporate machine. I'm not a marketing person but I do believe we have a very good offering and it's a shame it's being ignored solely because of bad blood.

zaidf 6y ago

This is a problem across enterprise SaaS companies. At my last company (small enterprise SaaS biz <$50M ARR), I got so tired of this consuming so much of my time. I literally hacked together some code so I could point at any line item from any bill generated by our "system" and it would try to answer "why did I get billed $x for this?" so a five year old could understand. I wish there were SaaS products that would effortlessly audit enterprise SaaS bills with support for more than just the top 1% SaaS products.

doorstar 6y ago
I was poking around with their CLI to see if I could put together a cron job - this artifact now costs more than $X so delete it. Unfortunately if there's a 'get current charges' command I haven't found it. I have a ticket open with MS support. I suppose it's to their credit that they're listening to me but it's been a few weeks with only the aforementioned hand-waving. I started just sending them screenshots showing that their own dashboard showed no usage during the times I'd gotten charged.

FridgeSeal 6y ago

Dealing with Azure causes me physical pain. AWS you can poke around and figure it out, Azure is a Kafkaesque nightmare of infinitely confusing UI/UX, a permission system that is like trying to hit a moving target in a dark room, being moved by someone that hates you, doing anything seems needlessly complex, and trying to replicate/test anything locally is horrible (looking at you Azure functions).

doorstar 6y ago
My sibling... I'm trapped in this mess because the nature of our Client is that they'd consider anything besides Azure as a slap in the face, but it's been absolutely the most miserable task I've taken on in years. As a bonus I'm getting side-eyed by teammates who have a naive faith in The Cloud and can't comprehend why this is taking so long and why I can't just give them a cost estimate.
- qchris 6y ago
  As an aside, unless I'm reading this very wrong, this is the first time I've seen the use of "my sibling" as a gender-neutral replacement of "my brother/sister" to express empathy. I'm delighted by it.
lucianf 6y ago
Semi-shameless plug (I work for Oracle) but have you tried OCI? You might find both the console UI/UX and the cloud calculator pretty decent. That's just my personal feel, coming over to work as an Oracle cloud consultant with previous AWS/Azure experience. I'd argue it's normal those two are where they are; AWS is now a spaghetti of products, while Microsoft are anti-KISS by DNA.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Yes people who want to avoid lock in really want to get in bed with “call us for pricing” Oracle.
  - lucianf 6y ago
    Point taken. Every time Oracle is mentioned it's in the context of horror licensing stories. I get that - but would it make a difference if I said OCI is actually different? Take this with as much salt as you want but they're really trying to put that in the past. OCI pricing is super transparent, simple metrics, cheaper than the incumbents on every front, there's no "call us for pricing", there's a transparent 30% discount for committed spending (before you even get to talk to a salesperson) and the dev team has been given free reign to act like a startup and ignore the corporate machine. I'm not a marketing person but I do believe we have a very good offering and it's a shame it's being ignored solely because of bad blood.