Your Azure VM's CPU Is at 12%: Here's What That's Actually Costing You

The article discusses strategies to reduce costs associated with Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) by addressing inefficiencies in resource utilization and management practices. Here's a summary of key points:

Key Points

1. Understanding VM Utilization:

   • A common issue is having VMs running at very low CPU utilization, such as 12%.
   • This underutilization leads to unnecessary costs.

2. Right-Sizing VMs:

   • Use Azure Advisor recommendations and pull 14-day p95 (95th percentile) CPU and memory data for all VMs.
   • Right-size VMs based on actual workload requirements rather than default configurations.
   • Validate changes in production with load tests to ensure application stability.

3. Non-Production VM Management:

   • Schedule non-production VMs to run only during business hours (e.g., 9 hours/day weekdays).
   • Delete unused or "zombie" VMs that haven't been accessed for a long time.
   • Right-size non-production VMs and downgrade disks from Premium SSD to Standard SSD.

4. Cost Reduction Phases:

   • Baseline: Gather data on current VM utilization.
   • **Non-

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