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Idle resources · Medium severity

Idle Azure VM

A running VM bills for its size every hour, and Azure only stops the compute charge once it is deallocated, a shut-down guest is still billed.

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Azureprovider
Mediumseverity
Savingswhere it shows up
Manualfix, steps written out

Azure

Found, explained, handed over.

Findings with a dollar figure attached, idle, oversized, orphaned, unscheduled and undiscounted spend.

01

Detect

ZopNight checks this automatically across Azure, with read-only access to the account.

02

Explain

Every finding says exactly what to change: Delete the idle VM. Where the saving can be proven it is priced; where it cannot, the finding says so.

03

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
  1. Open Monitor → Metrics for the resource; review 30-day CPU, memory (requires AMA), and network in/out to confirm the VM is genuinely idle, not just quiet in the trailing window.
  2. Verify no scheduled or seasonal workload depends on this VM.
  3. For an on-demand (pay-as-you-go) VM, apply the recommended recurring off-hours schedule (auto start/stop) so the VM is parked when unused and back up when needed. This is the lever. NOT a one-shot deallocate or delete. Compute billing pauses while it is stopped; managed disk storage keeps billing.
  4. If the VM is covered by a Reservation / Savings Plan, deallocating does not reduce committed spend. Instead exchange the reservation to a smaller size (Reservations → Exchange) and then resize the VM to match.
  5. Validate application latency and error rate for 48 hours after the change.

These are the steps the finding carries in the product.

Category
Idle resources. Resources running but doing no useful work: zero invocations, no connections, no traffic.
Where it appears
The Savings tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
Rule ID
RC-201
Full reference

Idle Azure VM

Related checks

Azure VM Antimalware Not EnabledAzureAzure VM Backup Not EnabledAzureAzure VM Disk Encryption Not EnabledAzureAzure VM JIT Access Not EnabledAzureAzure VM Missing Deletion ProtectionAzureAzure VM Update Management Not EnabledAzure

See the idle 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.

Multi-cloud automation· Production-ready in 30 min· SOC 2 · ISO 27001· 20–60% off the bill, first month· 4 platforms · 1 console· Multi-cloud automation· Production-ready in 30 min· SOC 2 · ISO 27001· 20–60% off the bill, first month· 4 platforms · 1 console·