Reference
FAQ
Straight answers to the questions teams ask before connecting Azure.
Getting started
Section titled “Getting started”How long does connecting take, and who does it?
Section titled “How long does connecting take, and who does it?”Your Azure admin does it. Budget about 45 minutes end to end at management group scope, roughly 25 of them hands-on; the four-step wizard at app.infralign.ai is about 6 minutes of that, once you hold the four values it asks for. Nobody at Infralign types anything for you, and no credential is emailed. See how long this really takes.
When do the dashboards open, and how will we know?
Section titled “When do the dashboards open, and how will we know?”Your cost data lands on the first nightly run after you connect, between 02:30 and 06:15 UTC. Once that run has landed, Infralign checks it and opens your dashboards within one business day, and support@infralign.ai emails you when they are live.
The run is a timer; opening the dashboards is a person, which is why the second half carries a business-day bound rather than an hour.
Who adds and removes our users?
Section titled “Who adds and removes our users?”Your own admins, on the People page. A person can sign in as soon as they are added, with their own Microsoft work account. No invite email is sent, so tell them yourself. Admins may add addresses only at domains recorded for your account. See manage who has access.
Do we need clean Azure tags before we start?
Section titled “Do we need clean Azure tags before we start?”No. Billing data and resource metadata are enough to begin, so dashboards and the audit work from day one on estates with poor tags. Ownership and allocation are attributed progressively. See data sources.
Who is Infralign best suited to?
Section titled “Who is Infralign best suited to?”Azure-heavy SMEs with roughly €100K+ of annual spend, a lean platform team, and no dedicated FinOps function. That is enough spend for optimisation to matter, and not enough headcount to staff it as a discipline. The free offer sets out what you get.
What does the free tier cost?
Section titled “What does the free tier cost?”The current campaign offer includes dashboards, reports, the chatbot, and one audit at no cost. Confirm the visibility tier’s duration and other commercial terms in writing. A paid engagement starts only after you accept a written scope and quote. See the free offer.
What is the FOCUS lane?
Section titled “What is the FOCUS lane?”An optional second cost lane for subscriptions where the daily Cost Details export becomes too slow to complete overnight, built from native FOCUS 1.2 exports on a monthly cadence. It trails the daily Cost API lane on freshness and adds one storage grant, so reach for it only when scale makes it worthwhile. Setup is in FOCUS exports and storage setup.
How it works
Section titled “How it works”Does this replace Azure Cost Management?
Section titled “Does this replace Azure Cost Management?”No. It builds on it. The Azure Cost Details API is the primary data source. Infralign prioritises by € impact, attaches utilisation evidence, attributes an owner, and adds an approve/reject path from finding to delivered fix. Every source is listed in data sources.
Will Infralign make changes automatically?
Section titled “Will Infralign make changes automatically?”No. The platform issues no workload or resource-configuration writes, and your team reviews and merges every change through its own pipeline. A senior Azure architect prepares change plans today; automated pull-request generation remains on the roadmap. See the safety model.
How is our data handled?
Section titled “How is our data handled?”The Azure roles are assigned at the management group covering your estate (the recommendation) or per subscription, revocable by your team, and grant no workload or resource-configuration writes. Reader exposes control-plane metadata but has no DataActions, so it cannot read database rows, blob contents, VM disks, or Key Vault secret values. Roles and alternatives are in permissions.
Is the access literally read-only?
Section titled “Is the access literally read-only?”Not quite. Cost Management Reader carries an unused Microsoft.Support/* capability that can create and update support tickets, which the support-ticket caveat covers along with the custom role that omits it. Hosting, and the controls still to close before onboarding, are in security and data handling.
Results
Section titled “Results”How quickly should we expect savings?
Section titled “How quickly should we expect savings?”The audit is targeted for week one, which starts once your first nightly run has landed and Infralign has opened your dashboards. In an engagement, the first change plans are typically reviewed in week two, and savings can often be measured in weeks three to four.
Azure data latency, change windows, and billing cycles all stretch those targets. Savings measurement methodology explains when a result becomes verified.
Bring us your Azure bill and leave with a number: get your free audit. Or start the technical work at connect Azure.