Analyze resource scheduling

Overview

Analyze resource scheduling is an AI Agent available under the AI Agents tab in Cost Analyzer. It evaluates whether an Azure resource is a candidate for start/stop or scale-down scheduling by examining its usage behavior over the past 14 days and estimating how much cost can be saved by running the resource only when it is needed.

How it works

When the agent is triggered for a resource, it pulls hourly utilization data over a 14-day window and maps usage intensity across each hour of the day for every day of the week.

Based on this pattern, it proposes a schedule window during which the resource can be stopped or scaled down, calculates the estimated cost under that schedule, and presents the projected monthly savings compared to the current list cost.

If no utilization data is available for the resource, the agent notes that the confidence in its recommendation is low and that the savings estimate is based on default assumptions for the resource type rather than observed activity.

Recommendation output

The agent surfaces the following information as part of its output:

• Resource type and current SKU or size
• Current list cost per month and estimated cost after applying the schedule
• Projected monthly savings in value and percentage
• Approximate hours saved per week
• A confidence rating for the recommendation, along with a plain-language explanation of what drove that rating
• A 14-day usage heatmap showing hourly utilization bucketed into four bands: High (≥55% of peak), Medium (25–54% of peak), Low (5–24% of peak), and Idle (<5% of peak)
• Average utilization figures for business hours, off-peak periods, and weekends
• Idle ratio during off-peak hours

Schedule feasibility

Before the recommendation is acted upon, the agent checks and communicates the following:

• Whether the proposed schedule window, typically Mon–Fri 08:00–18:00, is consistent with normal business usage patterns

• Whether any active reservations are applied to the resource, since reservations affect how savings are calculated

• Whether any rightsizing recommendations exist alongside the schedule suggestion

• Whether the resource may already be in a stopped or deallocated state, in which case a start/stop schedule would not produce additional savings against the listed cost, and no scheduling action would be needed