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Scheduling · Medium severity

Idle Azure VM Scale Set

The scale set bills for every instance it is holding, and instances the workload is not using are the ones the minimum count is keeping alive.

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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: Schedule the idle scale set off-hours. 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
VM Scale Sets on Azure
The fix, by hand
  1. Monitor → Metrics for the resource; review 14 to 30 day CPU, memory, and network, and confirm the scale set is idle across a repeating off-hours window (not just a quiet trailing week).
  2. Confirm the scale set is not actively serving traffic (LB backend health, request counts on the front door).
  3. Apply the recommended recurring off-hours schedule (auto start/stop) to scale the VMSS down during the measured idle window. This is the lever. NOT a one-shot scale-to-zero or delete.
  4. The scale set returns to its normal instance count each active window; compute billing pauses while parked, while attached disk storage continues to bill.
  5. Validate the reclaimed idle spend in Cost Management the following day.

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-270
Full reference

Idle Azure VM Scale Set

Related checks

Scaling Target Too HighAzureScaling Cooldown Too ShortAzureVMSS Autoscale Setting Not ConfiguredAzureScaling Target Too LowAzureIdle SageMaker HyperPod Cluster, Near-Zero UtilisationAWSASG Floor Lock DetectedAWS

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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·