We are pleased to announce the release of Usage and Billing v2.1.8.34 for Microsoft Azure Stack to General Availability. 

What's New?

1. Supports Microsoft Azure Stack Version 1905:
   
   • The Deployment scripts for the Cloud Assert Billing solution is now compatible with Azure Stack PowerShell version 1.7.2.
   • Cloud Assert Billing resource provider for Microsoft Azure Stack was tested against 1905 version.
     
     
2. Daily cost trend for user’s subscriptions:
   • In the Tenant portal, the cost trend for each subscription of the user can be seen.
   • The cost trend can be seen for previous billing cycles as well.
     
     
3. Configure Budgets for user’s subscriptions:
   • Tenants can set budgets for each subscription they own and set thresholds (say like 90% reach) to trigger a kind of warning alerts.
   • Warning alerts can be sent via email and it could be seen in the Tenant portal as well.

Known Issues:

1. The CSP customer profile will be created before the administrator approves.
2. The admin approval for a created customer profile is needed for the tenants to purchase CSP offers/licenses.
3. Only 200 metered pricing will be displayed/ listed when a pricing profile is opened.

Installers:

Download Azure Stack Billing latest Installers with Setup Guide + Operations Manual

Upgrade Notes: 
Updating Billing API and Agent Service
Pre-uninstall Steps

• Take a backup of Cloud Assert billing database.

• Take a backup of the following files from their respective locations.

File Name	File Path
Web.config	C:\inetpub\MgmtSvc-CloudAssertBilling
License.cal	C:\inetpub\MgmtSvc-CloudAssertBilling\bin
CloudAssert.WAP.Billing.AgentService.exe.config	C:\Program Files\CloudAssertBilling\CloudAssert.WAP.Billing.AgentService

 
Uninstallation Steps

• Uninstall existing Usage and Billing installers from Add or Remove Programs on the resource provider machine.

• Delete ‘CloudAssertBilling’ from ‘C:\Program Files’ if it presents after uninstalling Billing Agent Service setup.

Installation Steps

• To install the Billing API and Agent service components via command line, download the ‘setup.bat’ file here.

• Copy the initialize.ini file from the following location ‘C:\Packages\Plugins\Microsoft.Powershell.DSC\2.19.0.0\DSCWork\setupBillingConfiguration.0\AzureStack.Billing.Setup.1.0.0\content\Setup\Packages’.

• Place ‘setup.bat’ and ‘initialize.ini’ (which are acquired from the above steps) files in the folder where the billing installers have been extracted.

Installing Billing API Service

• Open a command prompt as administrator.

• Navigate to the billing installers folder.

• Run ‘setup.bat install-api’.

Installing Billing Agent Service

• Refresh the admin/tenant portal and verify that Billing extension is working fine.

• Open a command prompt as administrator.

• Navigate to the billing installers folder.

• Run ‘setup.bat install-agent’.

Post Installation Steps

• Download the Billing tool and extract it.

• Open a command prompt as administrator.

• Navigate to the billing tool folder.

• Run the ‘UpdateDatabase’ command in BillingTool.exe as below (the API endpoint, user name and password can be found from ‘initialize.ini’ file which is mentioned in Installation Steps),

Updating Resource Provider Components
Pre-Uninstall Steps

• Take a backup of the following files from their respective locations.

File Name	File Path
web.config	C:\inetpub\AzureStack-BillingAdminExtension
web.config	C:\inetpub\AzureStack-BillingTenantExtension
Web.config	C:\inetpub\AzureStack-BillingRP

 

Installing Billing Admin Extension

• Download and extract the admin extension.

• In the command prompt, change the directory to the AdminExtension folder.

• Run the command “CloudAssert.AzureStack.Billing.AdminExtension.deploy.cmd /y”.

• Open the web.config file from ‘C:\inetpub\AzureStack-BillingAdminExtension’.

• Replace the <appSettings> section from the corresponding backup file.

Installing Billing Tenant Extension

• Download and extract tenant extension.

• In the command prompt, change the directory to the TenantExtension folder.

• Run the command “CloudAssert.AzureStack.Billing.TenantExtension.deploy.cmd /y”.

• Open the web.config file from ‘C:\inetpub\AzureStack- AzureStack-BillingTenantExtension’.

• Replace the <appSettings> section from the corresponding backup file.

Installing Billing Resource Provider

• Download and extract resource provider.

• In the command prompt, change the directory to the RP folder.

• Run the command “CloudAssert.MAS.Billing.ResourceProvider.deploy.cmd /y”.

• Open the web.config file from ‘C:\inetpub\AzureStack-BillingRP’.

• Replace the <appSettings> section from the corresponding backup file.

• Ensure that the following two app settings are present in the config file after replacing the old app settings. Incase it is not available; copy paste the below two lines inside the <appSettings> section.

<add key="BillingRp.AdminTrustedCertificateThumbPrint" value="AdminThumbPrint1, AdminThumbPrint2" />

<add key="BillingRp.TenantTrustedCertificateThumbPrint" value="TenantThumbPrint1, TenantThumbPrint1" />

If you face any issues during the installation please reach us at support@cloudassert.com