Basic recommendations for Reservations

Overview

Basic recommendations surface reservation-purchase opportunities identified by Azure Advisor for Reserved Instances (RIs) and similar commitment-based pricing options. They require no additional configuration beyond service principal access, making this the fastest way to identify where a 1-year or 3-year commitment reduces cost.

Business value

Basic recommendations let you act on Azure Advisor's commitment-pricing suggestions directly from Cost Analyzer, without switching to the Azure portal, reducing the effort needed to identify and prioritize reservation purchases.

Prerequisites

Required permissions

The following Turbo360 role permissions control access to Basic recommendations within Cost Analyzer:

To view or manage Basic recommendations, a role needs:

• Optimization tab permission enabled, and
• Read (view only) or Manage (postpone/dismiss) on Reservations feature.

Roles are created under Cost Analyzer > User management > Roles > Add role, and can be scoped to specific cost management groups or subscriptions.

How it works

Basic recommendations are sourced from Azure Advisor and surface Reserved Instance (RI) purchase opportunities across your cost management groups. When you open the Reservations tab in Optimization, Cost Analyzer loads the latest Azure Advisor recommendation data for the selected group and presents it in the Basic recommendations view.

Each recommendation is classified by impact level:

• High — the potential monthly saving is significant and Azure Advisor has high confidence in the recommendation based on consistent resource usage.
• Medium — a moderate saving is available; usage patterns are reasonably consistent but not as clearly defined.
• Low — a saving is available but the resource has variable usage, making the commitment less straightforward.

The Recommendation Distribution bar at the top of the view shows the total number of recommendations broken down by impact level at a glance. The Potential monthly savings figure reflects the combined saving across all recommendations in the current view.

Recommendations are filtered by commitment term. The active filter is shown as a chip below the distribution bar (for example, Commitments eq 1yr, 30d). You can adjust the term and evaluation duration using Recommendation settings.

Actions taken on recommendations in Cost Analyzer — Postpone and Dismiss — are reflected directly in Azure Advisor. Recommendations are not suppressed locally only; the change propagates to Azure.

Steps

Go to Cost Analyzer > Optimization > Reservations > Basic recommendations to access the actions described in this section.

View recommendation details

Each row in the list shows the recommendation name, impact level, description, and potential monthly saving. Select the external link icon next to any recommendation to open the full Azure Advisor recommendation in the Azure portal for additional context before committing.

Postpone a recommendation

Postpone a recommendation when you want to act on it later but do not want it dismissed permanently. The change is reflected in Azure Advisor.

1. Select the checkbox next to the recommendation you want to postpone.
2. Click Actions and select Postpone recommendation.

Postponed recommendations are removed from the active list and can be retrieved using View suppressed recommendations from the Actions menu.

Dismiss a recommendation

Dismiss a recommendation when it is not applicable to your environment and you do not want it to reappear. The change is reflected in Azure Advisor.

1. Select the checkbox next to the recommendation you want to dismiss.
2. Click Actions and select Dismiss recommendation.

Dismissed recommendations are moved to the suppressed list. Use View suppressed recommendations to review or reinstate them.

View suppressed recommendations

To review recommendations that have been postponed or dismissed:

1. Click Actions.
2. Select View suppressed recommendations.

The suppressed list shows all recommendations that are no longer active in the main view, along with their suppression reason.

Download recommendations

To export the recommendation list to Excel:

1. Click Actions.
2. Select Download as Excel.

The downloaded file contains all recommendations currently visible in the list, including name, impact, description, and potential monthly saving.

Recommendation settings

Recommendation settings lets you control the commitment term and evaluation duration used to generate recommendations. Changes apply to the current cost management group.

To open Recommendation settings, click the Recommendation settings button in the top-right corner of the Basic recommendations view.

Explain with AI

Explain with AI generates a seven-section breakdown of the selected Azure Advisor reservation recommendation, giving you everything needed to assess, commit, or defer a purchase without leaving Cost Analyzer.

To open Explain with AI:

1. Go to Cost Analyzer > Optimization > Reservations > Basic recommendations.
2. Select the Explain with AI icon (✦) next to any recommendation in the list.
3. The AI Insights panel opens with a full analysis of the selected recommendation. Review each section in sequence or jump to the section most relevant to your decision.
4. To save the report, select Save as PDF at the top of the panel.

The AI Insights panel covers seven sections:

1. Savings summary: displays four key metrics at a glance: recommendation type, current monthly cost, monthly savings, and annual savings. A context callout below the metrics explains the financial significance of the recommendation over the full commitment term and how the savings compound if the reservation is held.
2. Metric analysis: presents a table of the resource's utilization metrics measured over the evaluation window, showing average and peak values alongside the downgrade and upgrade thresholds. This section provides the quantitative basis for the recommendation and confirms whether utilization is consistently above or below the threshold band.
3. Recommendation summary: explains the resource scope, what Azure Advisor is recommending (for example, purchasing a 1-year VM reserved instance to reduce on-demand compute costs), the financial case for acting, and why the recommendation should not be deferred.
4. Implementation steps: lists the numbered actions needed to act on the recommendation, each with an estimated time to complete and the tool required (Azure Portal, CLI, or PowerShell).
5. Risk and impact assessment: covers three named risk dimensions: Performance Risk (reservation mismatch rather than runtime performance), Availability Risk (a reserved instance does not alter VM runtime configuration; the impact window is effectively zero), and Overall Safety (an overall rating reflecting the estimated safety level for the purchase).
6. Rollback plan: describes how to revert the commitment if needed, cancel or exchange the reservation via the Reservation blade, watch for declining utilization or unexpected billing variance within 24 to 48 hours, and the expected rollback time.
7. Recommendation justification: contains two callouts: Why Recommended, explaining Azure Advisor's reasoning for the recommendation, and Recommended Timing, advising when to act to start capturing savings immediately.

Troubleshooting

1. No recommendations appear in the Basic recommendations view
   Cause: The service principal does not have Reservation Reader access in Azure, or there are no active Azure Advisor reservation recommendations for the selected cost management group.
   Fix: Confirm Reservation Reader is assigned to the service principal in the Azure portal. If permissions are correct, check Azure Advisor directly to confirm recommendations exist for the subscriptions in scope.

2. Explain with AI option is not available
   Cause: One or more of the three required permissions is missing: AI Agents must be set to Enable, Optimization must be set to Enable, and Reservations must have at least Read access under the custom role configuration.
   Fix: Review the custom role settings and confirm all three conditions are met. Refer to the Required permissions table above.

3. Recommendation settings changes do not update the list
   Cause: After saving updated settings, the recommendation list may not refresh automatically.
   Fix: Navigate away from the Basic recommendations tab and return to trigger a fresh load with the updated settings applied.

4. A postponed or dismissed recommendation is no longer visible
   Cause: Postponed and dismissed recommendations are moved to the suppressed list and hidden from the main view.
   Fix: Click Actions and select View suppressed recommendations to locate and reinstate the recommendation if needed.

5. Download as Excel produces an empty file
   Cause: No recommendations are currently visible in the list — either because all are suppressed, or because the active filters exclude all results.
   Fix: Clear any active filters and confirm recommendations are visible in the list before downloading.

FAQs

1. What is the difference between Postpone and Dismiss?
   Postpone hides a recommendation temporarily — it remains in the suppressed list and can be reinstated. Dismiss indicates the recommendation is not applicable to your environment; it is also moved to the suppressed list but signals a deliberate decision not to act on it. Both can be reviewed and reversed via View suppressed recommendations. Both actions propagate to Azure Advisor — the recommendation is not suppressed locally only; the change is reflected in Azure Advisor directly.

2. Does changing the commitment term in Recommendation settings affect the actual reservation purchase?
   No. Recommendation settings controls the term used to calculate and display recommendations within Cost Analyzer. It does not create, modify, or commit to any reservation in Azure. The actual purchase is made in the Azure portal.

3. How often does Azure Advisor refresh the recommendation data?
   Azure Advisor updates reservation recommendations periodically based on your resource usage data. The refresh frequency is determined by Azure, not by Cost Analyzer. If a recently purchased reservation is still appearing as a recommendation, allow time for Azure Advisor to reflect the change.

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