Azure Spring Clean March 2024
Introduction
Hello everyone, this blog post is my entry for this year’s AzureSpringClean event for 2024, which Thomas Thornton and Joe Carlyle run yearly.
This blog post covers how to save $$$ in Azure, so let’s dive straight in.
In this blog post which I also gave a talk on at the Glasgow Azure User Group in February, I cover how to check where you can save money in Azure, so at this point, you’re probably already spending more than you should, trust me there isn’t an environment I haven’t seen cost savings anywhere as yet, is something you need to check for regularly.
Azure Advisor
This is a free service in the Azure portal that uses AI to monitor your environment and it will recommend where you can save money, typically this is due to not using Azure reservations or your Virtual Machines needing to be resized, however, there are other areas across Azure where you can save money.
The screenshot below is of Advisor in Azure: –
We can use Advisor to check for the following kinds of recommendations:-
- Cost
- Security
- Reliability
- Operational Excellence
- Performance
This article concentrates on Cost savings, but I highly recommend you check Advisor weekly.
If you click on Cost on the left you will see a screenshot like the one below: –
Here we can see all of the cost recommendations including right-sizing virtual machines, using reserved instances on SQL and Cosmos DB, and even reservations on App Service instances and more.
Reservations
Not a lot of people know this but you can add reservations for numerous different Azure resources, including things like managed disks and Blob storage, etc.
You save thousands of $$$ by making use of Azure reservations especially for Azure Virtual Machines, just make sure to rightsize them using Advisor recommendations before you add any reservations.
Azure Hybrid Benefit
Azure Hybrid Benefit allows you to use your existing on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licenses to pay a reduced rate (“base rate”) on Azure services.
Instead of paying the full price for new Windows Server or SQL Server licenses in Azure, you can leverage your existing investments to save on costs.
You can activate AHB by purchasing licenses within Partner Centre and then applying them to your Azure Virtual Machine(s) like the following screen, the license costs around $260 but can save you thousands depending on the size of your Virtual Machine(s).
Azure Log Analytics Workspaces
Be careful what you log, make sure you are checking the usage and estimated costs on each of your log analytics workspaces. It is quite easy to turn on logging on app services or containers to try to locate issues in the code or performance tuning and forget to turn them off.
Cost Optimization
Within Advisor I want to point out a cool Azure Workbook – go to Advisor, click on Workbooks, and then locate the Cost Optimization workbook which is still in preview.
This workbook will highlight your Rate optimization and Usage Optimization and show you what you’re using and what you have forgotten to delete.
It shows you things like whether are you using all of your reservations and if you need more, it shows you things like unattached public IP addresses, deallocated Virtual Machines, and loads more, please do check it out.
Budgets
Every subscription should have an Azure Budget. I shall repeat this – Every subscription should have an Azure Budget.
Azure budgets allow users to set spending thresholds and receive alerts when their Azure spending approaches or exceeds those thresholds. This helps organizations to manage and control their Azure spending by providing visibility into usage and costs. This will stop you from getting a large bill at the end of the month and you would be shocked at the costs accumulated through the past month.
Summary
Check Advisor weekly, add a budget to all of your subscriptions, resize your Virtual Machines, make use of reservations, check how much you’re spending on logging, and also make sure you turn on Defender for Cloud (security thing not a cost thing).