As cloud computing continues to revolutionize the way businesses operate, it’s crucial to keep a close eye on the costs associated with your Azure infrastructure. Inefficient resource utilization can quickly lead to ballooning expenses, eating into your bottom line. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore two key best practices for optimizing your Azure costs by identifying and eliminating unused or underutilized resources.

Identifying Low Utilization Virtual Machines

One of the most common sources of wasted Azure spending is virtual machines that are running but not being fully utilized. These idle instances can consume valuable compute and storage resources without providing any tangible business value. Here’s how to identify and address this issue:

  1. Login to the Azure Portal: Navigate to the Azure Portal at https://portal.azure.com/.

  2. Find Your Virtual Machines: In the upper search pane, type “Virtual machines” and select the option from the list.

  3. Review Usage Statistics: Select an existing virtual machine and navigate to the “Overview