AKS Agent Pool VM-Size Rightsizing
Node pool VMs bill for their size regardless of how much of them the pods request, so a pool sized above its scheduled load pays for the difference.
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AzureKubernetes
Found, explained, fixed.
Findings with a dollar figure attached, idle, oversized, orphaned, unscheduled and undiscounted spend.
Detect
ZopNight checks this automatically across Azure, with read-only access to the account.
Explain
Every finding says exactly what to change: Change the AKS node pool VM size. Where the saving can be proven it is priced; where it cannot, the finding says so.
Fix
After a guided review, where you confirm the change, ZopNight resizes it to the recommended tier, then checks the change took.
- Applies to
- AKS Agent Pools on Azure
- The fix, by hand
- Open Azure Monitor → AKS insights → Node pools and inspect aggregated CPU/memory usage over a representative 30-day window.
- Confirm every workload running on this pool has a PodDisruptionBudget that covers the rolling node recreate; without one the resize will block on un-evictable pods.
- Resize via Azure CLI:
az aks nodepool update --cluster-name ‹cluster› --resource-group ‹rg› --name ‹pool› --node-vm-size ‹smaller-sku›(AKS drains and recreates each node in rolling fashion). - Watch the rollout in Azure Portal → AKS → Node pools, confirming each node returns to Ready with the new VM SKU before the next drains.
- Monitor application latency/error metrics for 24h after the migration; revert by repeating the command with the original SKU if pressure shows up at the smaller rung.
ZopNight does this for you after a guided review.
- Category
- Rightsizing. Resources sized for headroom they never use. A smaller size runs the same workload for less.
- Where it appears
- The Savings tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
- Rule ID
RC-1229
Related checks
See the oversized resources in your account.
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- $30M+annualised cloud spend under management
- 550K+resources tracked since launch
- 20-60%off the bill in the first month
- SOC 2Type II report, plus ISO 27001
Figures published on zop.dev.