🛡️ Azure Reservation monthly utilization is below 80%🟢

• Contextual name: 🛡️ Reservation monthly utilization is below 80%🟢
• ID: /ce/ca/azure/reservations/monthly-utilization-below-threshold
• Tags:
  • 🟢 Policy with categories
  • 🟢 Policy with type
  • 🟢 Production policy
• Policy Type: COMPLIANCE_POLICY
• Policy Categories: COST

Stats

not available

Logic

• 🧠 prod.logic.yaml🟢
  • 📗 Azure Reservation
  • 🔌 Azure Reservation Utilization - object.extracts.yaml
  • 🔌 Azure Reservation - object.extracts.yaml
  • 🧪 test-data.json

Description

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Description

This policy identifies successfully provisioned Azure Reservations whose recent monthly average utilization is below 80%. A utilization record is recent for 40 days from the first day of its Year Month.

Rationale

Azure Reservations are paid commitments. Utilization below 80% indicates that a material share of the reserved capacity did not receive matching usage during the reported period. The threshold is a cost-review trigger rather than an Azure compliance requirement; sustained low utilization can indicate a scope, SKU, or quantity mismatch and an opportunity to improve future commitment coverage.

Impact

Changing a Reservation's scope or exchanging or refunding an eligible Reservation can alter discounts across workloads. Review multiple periods, seasonal demand, the remaining term, and current Azure exchange and refund rules before acting.

Audit

This policy evaluates an Azure Reservation and its related Azure Reservation Utilization records.

The Reservation is marked as INCOMPLIANT if:

• Provisioning State is Succeeded.

... see more

Remediation

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Remediation

Review the Reservation's monthly utilization in the Azure portal and compare several periods before making a change. Confirm whether the shortfall is seasonal, caused by a scope or SKU mismatch, or expected to be consumed by planned demand.

If low utilization is persistent:

1. Move the Reservation scope to subscriptions or resource groups with matching usage, where appropriate.
2. For virtual machine Reservations, review instance size flexibility and the workloads eligible for the benefit.
3. Evaluate an exchange or refund only if the Reservation is eligible under the current Azure terms and limits.
4. Reduce the quantity or change the SKU, region, or scope of future purchases and renewals.

Validate the effect on every covered workload with the workload owner and FinOps team before making a change.

policy.yaml

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Linked Framework Sections

Section	Sub Sections	Internal Rules	Policies	Flags	Compliance
💼 Cloudaware Framework → 💼 Resource Optimization			37		no data