Azure Dev/Test VM Without Auto-Shutdown
A dev/test VM with no shutdown schedule bills for all 168 hours of the week to serve the 50 or so anybody uses it.
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Azure
Found, explained, handed over.
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: Schedule auto-shutdown on the dev/test VM. Where the saving can be proven it is priced; where it cannot, the finding says so.
Fix
The finding opens with the fix already written out, step by step, so it is one ticket, not an investigation.
- Applies to
- Virtual Machines on Azure
- The fix, by hand
- Confirm the resource is a dev/test or other interruption-tolerant workload.
- VM → Operations → Auto-shutdown.
- Set Enabled = On, pick a local time (e.g. 19:00) and the correct time zone.
- Enable notification before shutdown and add a webhook or email if developers need a chance to defer.
- For full dev/test lifecycle management, consider moving the VM into an Azure DevTest Labs lab which adds auto-start + claim/release.
- Validate the shutdown ran by checking the VM's Activity log the next morning.
These are the steps the finding carries in the product.
- Category
- Scheduling. Resources running 24x7 with a clear off-hours usage pattern, ready for start and stop scheduling.
- Where it appears
- The Savings tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
- Rule ID
RC-1302- Full reference
Related checks
See the always-on resources in your account.
Connect a read-only role and the first pass runs on your own estate. This check, and the rest of the catalogue, with it.
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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.