Cost optimization
Citrix Director now introduces a new feature called Cost Optimization, which helps you to analyze the usage of virtual machines and sessions effectively. This feature provides insightful visual representations on how to optimize the cost. It also helps you to eliminate unnecessary machines and thereby reducing costs.
To support the cost optimization, the following alerts are also introduced:
You can also inspect machines with recent power actions to analyze power on failure which causes user issues and power off failure which increase costs. For more information, see the Inspect machines with recent power actions section.
Click the Cost Optimization tab from the left menu on the Home page to access the Cost Optimization page.
On the Cost Optimization home page, you can do the following:
- Get started link - Access this link to learn more about the cost optimization feature.
- Review the cost optimization page - You can provide feedback on the Cost Optimization page
- Refresh the data.
- View the alerts - You can view both critical and warning alerts.
The Cost Optimization page includes the following features:
How is the cost calculated for optimizing the cost?
The cost per machine per hour is displayed in the currency that the hypervisor supports. This section describes how cost is calculated for Azure machines and for other machines.
Cost for Azure machines
The order of priority for calculating the cost is as follows:
- When the ‘Microsoft.Consumption/pricesheets/read permission is available, the effective price is displayed in the currency that is configured in the Azure subscription.
- If permissions aren’t available, the Azure retail price is displayed. For more information, see Azure Retail Prices overview.
- When the effective price or retail price isn’t available, the cost is displayed based on the cost entered by admins in the Web Studio.
- If there is no cost mentioned in the Web Studio, the default cost of $1 is considered.
To find the account details of Azure and add the required permission to find the effective price, do the following:
- Navigate to Citrix DaaS.
- Click the Hosting tab to find the hosting connection account.
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Look for the Application ID mentioned in the Hosting tab.
- Go to the Azure AD and look for the Application ID noted in step 3.
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Go to Subscription > Access control (IAM) > choose a customized role configured for the hosting connection SPN.
- Add the Microsoft.Consumption/pricesheets/read permission to the role.
How to verify the Azure retail price?
If the Microsoft.Consumption/pricesheets/read isn’t available, the Azure retail price is displayed. Now you can use the Retail Rates Prices API to get retail prices for all Azure services. Previously, the only way that you can retrieve prices for Azure services was to either use the Azure Pricing Calculator or use the Azure portal. For more information, see Azure Retail Prices overview.
Calculating costs for machines other than Azure
For other machines, cost is displayed based on the cost entered by admins in the Web Studio. If there is no cost mentioned in the Web Studio, the default cost of $1 is considered.