🛡️ Azure Virtual Machine is underutilized🟢

• Contextual name: 🛡️ Virtual Machine is underutilized🟢
• ID: /ce/ca/azure/virtual-machine/virtual-machine-underutilized
• Tags:
  • 🟢 Policy with categories
  • 🟢 Policy with type
  • 🟢 Production policy
• Policy Type: COMPLIANCE_POLICY
• Policy Categories: COST, PERFORMANCE

Stats

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Logic

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

Description

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Description

Identify Azure Virtual Machines that are potentially underutilized and rightsize (downsize) them to optimize cloud expenditure. When a linked New Relic host is available, this policy also evaluates memory utilization. Otherwise, it falls back to CPU metrics only. A VM is classified as underutilized if, over a 14-day period, its average CPU utilization remains below 40% and its maximum CPU utilization does not exceed 50%, with memory utilization below 40% when New Relic data is available. Persistently underutilized VMs indicate over-provisioning, leading to inefficient resource usage and elevated operational costs.

Rationale

Detecting and addressing underutilized VMs is a key cost optimization strategy in cloud environments. By rightsizing or decommissioning over-provisioned VMs, you can reduce unnecessary spending, improve overall resource utilization, and reallocate compute capacity to higher-priority workloads.

Impact

Downsizing actions must be carefully evaluated to avoid negatively impacting performance, particularly for workloads that may experience occasional bursts or are stateful in nature.

... see more

Remediation

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Remediation

Considerations

1. Virtual machines (VMs) with local temporary disks cannot be resized to VM SKUs that do not support temporary disks, and vice versa.
2. Resizing from a SCSI-based VM SKU to a remote NVMe-enabled VM SKU is not supported.

Right-Sizing UNderutilized Virtual Machine

Resizing a VM should be treated as a disruptive operation, particularly for stateful workloads. Ensure proper planning and downtime windows if required.

For VMs leveraging Premium Storage, it is critical to select an s-series SKU to retain support. For instance, use Standard_E4s_v3 instead of Standard_E4_v3 to maintain Premium disk compatibility.

Azure CLI

resourceGroup={{resource-group-name}}
vmName={{vm-name}}
newSize={{desired-vm-size}}

### Deallocate the VM
az vm deallocate --resource-group $resourceGroup --name $vmName

### Resize the VM
az vm resize --resource-group $resourceGroup --name $vmName --size $newSize

### Start the VM
az vm start --resource-group $resourceGroup --name $vmName

PowerShell

$resourceGroup = "{{resource-group-name}}"

... [see more](remediation.md)

policy.yaml

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Linked Framework Sections

Section	Sub Sections	Internal Rules	Policies	Flags	Compliance
💼 Cloudaware Framework → 💼 Resource Right-Sizing			20		no data
💼 Cloudaware Framework → 💼 Workload Efficiency			25		no data