🔹 Feature: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Cost Analysis — Per-Namespace, Per-Workload Cost Visibility
🔹 What It Does: Built-in AKS add-on (powered by OpenCost) that breaks down cluster spend by namespace, workload, and underlying Azure resources — directly in Azure Cost Management. Available on AKS Standard or Premium tier (not Free). 💰📊
What Is It Giving You:
✅ Per-Namespace Cost Allocation: Show each namespace’s share of VM, disk, load balancer, and public IP spend — reconciled against your real Azure invoice. Chargeback / showback becomes a portal click instead of a spreadsheet exercise.
✅ Idle, Service, System & Unallocated Breakdown: Idle = available but unused capacity. Service = AKS service charges (Uptime SLA, Defender for Containers, etc.). System = capacity reserved for kubelet and container runtime. Unallocated = resources that couldn’t be tied to a namespace. Stop arguing about where the money went.
✅ Powered by OpenCost: CNCF Incubating project — open methodology, vendor-neutral attribution model. Microsoft just operationalized it inside Azure.
✅ Native Azure Cost Management Integration: Cost data lands in the same Cost Management views (Kubernetes namespaces and Kubernetes assets) as the rest of your Azure spend. One pane of glass for FinOps.
✅ One Flag to Enable: –enable-cost-analysis on az aks create or az aks update. Disable just as easily with –disable-cost-analysis.
✅ **Up to ~7,000 Containers Per Cluster:** Handles real-sized clusters out of the box.
🌐 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/cost-analysis
