Press CTRL+K to open search

Reservation recommendations

  • 3 minute(s) read
Prev Next

Overview

Reservation recommendations is a document type in Azure Documenter that surfaces opportunities to reduce Azure compute spend by purchasing Reserved Instances (RIs), with potential savings of up to 60% compared to pay-as-you-go pricing.

Business value

Reservation recommendations helps teams cut Azure compute spend by surfacing which resources are good candidates for reserved pricing, without manually cross-checking usage against reservation eligibility.

Prerequisites

Reservation Reader access must be granted to the service principal in Azure to view reservations and generate reservation-based recommendations data.

Required permissions

Azure

Reservation Reader access must be granted to the service principal in Azure before generating a Reservation recommendations document. To assign Reservation Reader to the service principal:

  1. Navigate to the Reservations section in the Azure portal by searching Reservations in the search bar.
  2. Select the Role assignment option.
  3. Select Add role assignment > Reservation Reader from the available job function roles.
  4. Click Next and select the required service principal using the Select members option.
  5. Click Select and complete the process by selecting Review + assign.

Turbo360

The following Turbo360 role permissions control access to the Documentation section, where generated documents are accessed and managed:

Role Permission level Access
Account owner, Owner, Contributor - Full access to the Documentation section
Custom role Read View documents generated under Documentation
Custom role Manage View, generate, and manage documents under Documentation

How it works

Reservation recommendations are currently available for the following resource types:

  • App service plan
  • Virtual Machine

The document contains recommendations of four different types:

  1. Purchase Reservation: you can optimize cost by purchasing a reservation with a one-year or three-year pricing commitment.
  2. Change SKU and Purchase Reservation: the resource's SKU should be changed to one compatible with reservations, after which a reservation can be purchased.
  3. Change SKU and Use Existing Reservation: the resource's SKU should be changed to one compatible with reservations, allowing it to use an existing unused reservation.
  4. Already with Reservation: the resource is already using a purchased reservation.

Steps

Use the following steps to generate a Reservation recommendations document. Navigate to Azure Documenter to get started.

  1. Click New configuration. The Configure your document wizard opens.
  2. In Step 1 (Basics), enter a configuration name. Under Choose document type, select Reservation recommendations. Configure the following options:
    • Currency: the currency in which cost data is displayed
    • Evaluation duration: the number of days of usage data to analyze (default: 30 days)
    • Recommendations: filters the output to a specific recommendation type: All, Consider Reservation, Change Sku and Consider Reservation, Change Sku and Use Existing Reservation, or Already with Reservation.
  3. In Step 2 (Service principal), select the service principal and configure the subscription scope. Click Next.
  4. Complete Steps 3–6 (Branding, Publish settings, Schedule, Notifications) as required. Click Next after each step.
  5. In Step 7 (Review), confirm your configuration and click Finish.

Once generation is complete, a URL is created for the document, and you can download it using the Download link.

Example scenario

Contoso's cloud finance team wants to reduce compute costs for their Production subscription. They generate a Reservation recommendations document covering their App service plans and Virtual Machines, then purchase 1-year reservations for the resources flagged under Purchase Reservation.

Troubleshooting

  1. Reservation recommendations document returns no recommendations
    Cause: insufficient usage history exists for the selected evaluation duration, or the selected subscriptions contain no supported resource types (App service plan or Virtual Machine).
    Fix: increase the evaluation duration or verify that supported resource types exist in the selected subscriptions.

  2. Document generation fails or returns incomplete data
    Cause: the service principal lacks the required permissions to access reservation and usage data for the selected subscriptions.
    Fix: verify the service principal has at least Reader access on all selected subscriptions, then regenerate.

  3. Evaluation duration change does not reflect in the generated document
    Cause: the configuration was edited but the document was not regenerated after saving the change.
    Fix: after updating the evaluation duration, regenerate the document using the Context menu ( ⋮ ) next to the configuration.

FAQs

  1. Who can access the Documentation section by default?
    Account owner, Owner, and Contributor roles have full access by default. No additional configuration is required.

  2. What's the difference between Read and Manage for Documentation?
    Read lets a user view documents generated under Document Types. Manage lets a user view, generate, and manage them.

  3. Which resource types support reservation recommendations?
    App service plan and Virtual Machine are currently supported.

Related articles