Azure VM Cost Control: Deallocate, Resize, Commit

Stopped is not the same as deallocated

Microsoft’s VM states and billing table is the most important page for Azure VM cost:

• Stopped (also called Stopped (Allocated) or PoweredOff): the VM is allocated on a host but not running. This is the result of the PowerOff API or a shutdown from inside the guest OS, and it is billed.
• Deallocated: the VM has released its lease on the underlying hardware. Shown as Stopped (Deallocated), or Hibernated (Deallocated) after hibernation. Compute is not billed.

Microsoft adds a footnote that matters for every schedule: some resources, such as disks and networking, continue to incur charges after deallocation.

What ZopNight does with Azure VMs

Azure VMs are on ZopNight’s start/stop list, and ZopNight handles the Azure-specific operation, deallocate versus stop, rather than a generic power-off. Schedules are cron expressions in the timezone you pick; overrides keep a VM up past the window with a reason and an expiry. Every transition is recorded with what triggered it, so you can tell a scheduled stop from a manual one. Start and stop require a read + write connection; read-only subscriptions get discovery and recommendations. A tenant-scoped connection discovers each accessible subscription as a child account.

The Azure catalog carries more VM rules than any other Azure type. The ones that move money:

• Azure VM Non-Production Scheduling and Azure Dev/Test VM Without Auto-Shutdown price a recurring window from the VM’s measured idle hours. Their Remediate button opens schedule creation with the VM prefilled.
• Azure VM Rightsizing, Downscale Opportunity can be applied through the one-click resize workflow.
• Azure Spot VM Opportunity, Azure Reserved VM Opportunity and Azure Hybrid Benefit Opportunity. Hybrid Benefit is a licensing setting and is reversible.
• Deallocated Azure VM Residual Cost prices the managed disks and public IPs a deallocated VM keeps paying for, the footnote above turned into a number.
• Azure RI/SP Covering Deallocated VM catches a reservation still paying for a machine that no longer runs.
• Unattached Azure Managed Disk can earn automatic cleanup once detachment is proven for at least 7 days.

Idle Azure VM is surfaced as advisory: a one-shot stop of a running VM is never automated, because the workload inside is invisible to the cloud API.

One cost-reporting detail specific to Azure: ZopNight reads Azure costs as amortized, so reservation and savings-plan purchases are spread across the term and each VM shows its effective daily cost.

Fact sheets: Azure VMs, managed disks. Schedule notes: scheduling Azure VMs. Findings: Azure recommendations.