Azure Runbook – Licensing Alert

I created this script for a client that wanted to know when they had no available licenses for any SKU.  I’m sure they will add this to the portal soon (?)

The goal is simple – if my consumed no. of licenses = available licenses for any given SKU, send an email to me and my CSP so I can replenish before it becomes a problem.  Easily modified to alert at any number of remaining available licenses. e.g. to alert when there are 5 available licenses change ($_.ConsumedUnits -eq $_.ActiveUnits) to ($_.ConsumedUnits -eq $_.ActiveUnits-5).

The script is written to run as an Azure PowerShell Runbook, which allows use of a credential stored in the automation account, as well as using output to have some nice text show up in the portal logs.  I’m assuming you have set this stuff up already (if you haven’t, google it and get it sorted =). I’ll do a post soon on how to do it but it is not too difficult.

Azure blocks outbound connections on port 25, so no going there!  But aha, they do allow secure port 587.  So I use a ‘soon to be’ deprecated command called send-mailmessage to send the email using a free SendGrid account (no cost for 100 emails per month) which is plenty enough for this solution.

Disclaimer ## as I was testing the script, I noticed Azure now has a ‘SendGrid solution’ where you can sign up to SendGrid free from within the Azure portal – awesome!  Shame I missed it… if I update to using that method I will update this post =).  My understanding is that you could sign up for that, then use it by calling a ‘playbook’ from the automation script.

Here is the script (replace $smtppswd with your sendgrid API key SG.xxxxxx, replace $runbookcredentialname with your runbook cred name, replace $mailfrom and $mailto).  Also, since there may be 0 available licenses or 1000 freely available licenses, by default I’m only considering available license values >1 <500.  Change to suit your needs!

If you have any problems or made the script cooler (like sending the info in an HTML table) please add a comment below! 🙂

# use TLS 1.2
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

# check for any licenses out of stock and send a notification - Simon Burbery - August 2021

# create credential for sending email via SendGrid
$smtpuser = 'apikey'
$smtppswd = ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'SG.xxxxxxx' -AsPlainText -Force
$CredSMTP = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $SMTPuser, $SMTPpswd

# set variables
$runbookcredentialname = 'svc_runbookaccount'
$mailfrom = 'Azure License Notifcation <sendmail@place.co.nz>'
$mailto = @("<admin@place.co.nz>", "<azurealerts@place.co.nz>")
$mailsubject = 'Warning - out of licenses!'
$mailbody = 'Availability of one or more of your license SKUs has reached zero:'
$mailserver = 'smtp.sendgrid.net'
$mailport = '587'
$mailcredential = $CredSMTP

# get credential for msol connection
Try { 
    $CredAzure = Get-AutomationPSCredential -Name $runbookcredentialname
}
        Catch {
            Write-Error "Failed to get credential!"
            Exit
        }   
Write-Output "Get automation credential - Success"

# connect msol
Try {
    Connect-MsolService -Credential $CredAzure
}
        Catch {    
            Write-Error "Failed to connect to MSOnline - check credential!"
            Exit
        }
Write-Output "Connect to MSOL - Success"

# license check
$skucheck = Get-MsolAccountSku  | Where-Object { ($_.ActiveUnits -gt 0) -and ($_.ActiveUnits -lt 500) -and ($_.ConsumedUnits -eq $_.ActiveUnits) }

# email body format
$mailbodyfinal = $mailbody,$skucheck | Out-String -Width 500

# send notification
If ( $skucheck -ne $null ) {
    $MailParameters = @{
        From = $mailfrom
        To = $mailto
        Subject = $mailsubject
        Body = $mailbodyfinal
        SmtpServer = $mailserver
        Port = $mailport
        Credential = $CredSMTP
        UseSsl = $true
        }
        Send-MailMessage @MailParameters
            If  ($? -ne $true) { 
    Write-Error "Failed to send email notification!" 
    }
                Else {
                Write-Output "Send email notification - Success"
            }       
}
    Else {
        Write-Output "No licensing issues detected"
    }

# end