MDCO and reservation reporting using Power BI

MDCO depends on near real-time monitoring of data and making decisions supported by the key characteristics of the data. When purchasing a reservation, it is often overwhelming to simulate various scenarios to make the optimal decision. One such scenario is to compare optimal savings between 1-year and 3-year reservations for Azure services. FinOps teams are often asked to create such reports to allow businesses to evaluate the various choices.

Here is an example MDCO recreation Power BI report that you can customize to suit your needs:

1. Open Microsoft Edge.
2. Navigate to https://github.com/PacktPublishing/FinOps-Handbook-for-Microsoft-Azure/tree/main/Chapter-11.
3. Download ri-savings-pbi.pbix and open it in Power BI Desktop.

Figure 11.1 – MDCO for reservations report

4. The graphic in the top left is Term selection. The RI Savings data has a field that can be very useful for distinguishing...