Getting Started

Overview

Cirrova connects to your Azure environment via a service principal with read-only access to Azure APIs. Once connected, Cirrova pulls your cost and usage data and surfaces it as real-time dashboards, anomaly alerts, and optimisation insights.

No agents or software need to be installed in your Azure environment. Cirrova uses standard Azure APIs and holds no standing write access to your subscriptions.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have:

• An active Microsoft Azure subscription
• Permission to register an application in Azure Entra ID (or an admin who can do this on your behalf)
• Permission to assign roles on the Tenant Root Management Group (or an admin who can)

We recommend assigning roles at the Tenant Root Management Group level so that all current and future subscriptions are automatically in scope.

Connect Azure

Follow these steps to connect your Azure environment to Cirrova.

1. Register an app in Entra ID

   In the Azure Portal, navigate to Entra ID → App registrations → New registration. Give the app a recognisable name (e.g. Cirrova Cost Reader) and leave all other defaults as-is. Click Register.

   On the app's Overview page, make a note of the Application (client) ID and the Tenant ID — you will need these shortly.

2. Create a client secret

   Inside the newly registered app, go to Certificates & secrets → New client secret. Set an expiry that suits your rotation policy (12 or 24 months is common). Copy the Value immediately — it will not be shown again.

   Copy the secret value before navigating away. Azure only shows it once.

3. Assign roles on the Tenant Root Management Group

   To find your Tenant Root Management Group, go to Azure Portal → Resource Manager → Organization → Management Groups and select the root group at the top of the hierarchy.

   Go to Access control (IAM) → Add role assignment and assign the following three roles to the service principal you registered in step 1:

   • Reader
   • Cost Management Reader
   • Monitoring Reader

   Add each role as a separate role assignment, repeating the Add role assignment steps for each one.

4. Enter the credentials in Cirrova

   Back in Cirrova, add your tenancy:

   1. Click Organisation Settings → Tenancies
   2. Click Add tenancy
   3. Give your tenancy a name, then enter the tenant ID, application ID, and client secret you noted in the previous steps

   Click Test connection. Cirrova will verify access and begin the initial data ingestion. The first run retrieves 30 days of historical data and may take up to an hour to complete.

Explore your dashboard

Once the first ingestion completes, the Dashboard becomes your home view. At a glance:

• Summary tiles across the top show resource counts, 30-day spend, month-end forecast, active anomalies, budgets exceeded, high-priority insights, and potential savings.
• Daily and monthly spend charts show your current burn rate, seven-day average, and forecast to month-end.
• Top subscriptions, resource groups, and resource types break down where your spend is concentrated.
• Collection status at the bottom shows when each tenancy was last ingested — check here first if a figure looks stale.
• Everything is clickable. Tiles, chart bars, and donut segments all drill through to the relevant page with filters pre-applied.

From the left-hand navigation you can go deeper with Cost Explorer, Resources, Anomalies, Budgets, Insights, Events, and Reports.

Next steps

You're up and running. Here are a few things to explore next:

• Set a budget — Create a monthly spend cap with customisable threshold alerting to stay on top of your costs.
• Invite your team — Go to Organisation Settings → Users → Add User to invite team members. Once they've signed in, you can manage their access roles from Organisation Settings → Users using the more actions button.
• Review Insights — The Insights panel surfaces rightsizing recommendations and idle resource alerts based on your usage data.
• Schedule a report — Configure a weekly cost summary to be emailed to your team or finance stakeholders.

If you run into any issues during setup, email us at hello@cirrova.io and we will help you get connected.