Azure SQL Dev/Test Excessive Backup Retention
Backup retention beyond the included period bills per gigabyte per month for restore points a dev/test database will never be rolled back to.
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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: Shorten backup retention on the SQL database. 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
- SQL Databases on Azure
- The fix, by hand
- SQL Database → the resource → Data management → Backups → Retention policies.
- Reduce Point-in-time restore (PITR) retention toward the policy minimum (7 days) for dev/test databases.
- Remove any Long-term retention (LTR) policy not justified by a compliance contract.
- Save; Azure prunes backups beyond the new retention on the next backup cycle.
- Audit the change in the Activity log and confirm with the data owner.
These are the steps the finding carries in the product.
- 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-1333- Full reference
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.