During these last months, the buzz Microsoft has tried to create around Azure Lighthouse is astonishing. In basically every partner meeting, Azure Lighthouse is mentioned somewhere, no matter the relevance to the topic.
Don’t get me wrong, I think this is great! Azure Lighthouse is an amazing service that needs all the attention it can get. However, the information I've seen so far is so scattered with inconsistent and weak messages that it is hard to understand why we should care.
So, for you to start caring about Azure Lighthouse, let me encapsulate its main features:
- It allows you to see and control all your customers Azure subscriptions in your Azure portal account:
- In addition, through Azure Monitor, you can monitor all your customers’ Azure environments, policies, and warnings in one window.
- Through Azure Cost Manager (ACM), you can see all your customers’ costs and cost-saving recommendations in one window.
- All code necessary for Azure Lighthouse to work is already implemented in your Azure Portal = No need to install or update anything.
- If you know how to use PowerShell or CLI, you can onboard your customers to Azure Lighthouse with relative ease (link to official instructions here).
If you’re still not convinced about Azure Lighthouse’s importance, check out the video below! It has gone completely under the radar (less than 500 views on an official Microsoft account), but is by far the best explanation I've seen what Azure Lighthouse does and why it’s so valuable for you as an Azure partner.
Perriman, Symon, 2019, 11 Rad Ways Azire Lighthouse Integrates with Azure Services, image, viewed January 2020, <https://www.altaro.com/msp-dojo/azure-lighthouse-azure-services/>.