Cost monitoring
You'll complete a short day-zero cost path right after infra: see spend in the account console, optionally add dashboards in a workspace, tag workloads, and set budgets.
Prereqs: Infra setup
Why this matters
Organizations that wait on cost monitoring inherit two predictable problems: surprise invoices when usage scales before anyone is watching, and no credible story when finance asks who drove which spend. Day-zero monitoring fixes that by making consumption visible while you still have a small number of workspaces and owners. You align expectations before teams multiply, pipelines land in production, and tags become painful to retrofit.
Mental model (system tables)
System tables are the read-only billing and operations tables in the system catalog (for example system.billing.usage and system.billing.list_prices). Imported dashboards and SQL you write later both read from them. You do not need to master the schema on day zero; you need to know they are the source of truth for consumption and list-price dollars.
For depth, use the official references:
- System tables reference
- Billable usage system table reference
- Monitor costs using system tables
- Top 10 queries to use with System Tables (community walkthrough)
Journey checklist
-
Get started. -
Before you start. -
Infra setup. - Cost monitoring (day zero)
- Data governance strategy
- Access your data
- Build the first pipeline
- Automation & orchestration
- Query and explore
- Databricks AI/BI
- Business semantics
Recommended order
| Step | Topic | Why this slot |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Import usage dashboard | Fast visibility from the account console—no SQL. |
| 2 | Additional dashboards | Optional packaged dashboards on your catalog and schema. |
| 3 | Tags and attribution | Forward-only labels for team and project rollups. |
| 4 | Budget alerts | Account-level monthly monitors with email. |
Next
- Do next: Import usage dashboard
- Learn why: Account Console foundations
- Reference: Cost management tools on Databricks