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    Reservations
    • 13 Dec 2024
    • 4 Minutes to read
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    Contents

    Reservations

    • Updated on 13 Dec 2024
    • 4 Minutes to read
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    Article summary

    Introduction

    Reservations help reduce the cost of Azure services by discounting pay-as-you-go pricing with 1- or 3-year purchasing commitments.

    Reservation recommendations are available in two flavors and can be accessed based on the user preference:

    1. Basic recommendation
    2. Advanced recommendation

    Service Principal Access

    Reservation Reader access must be provided to the Service Principal to view reservations and reservation-based recommendations.

    Follow the below steps to provide Reservation Reader access to the Service Principal:

    1. Navigate to the Reservations section in Azure Portal by searching Reservations in the search bar

    2. Select the Role assignment option
      image.png

    3. Select Add role assignment -> Reservation Reader from the available Job function roles
      image.png

    4. Click Next and Select the required service principal by clicking the Select members option
      image.png

    5. Click Select and complete the process by selecting the Review + assign option

    Basic recommendation

    • The basic recommendation provides reservation suggestions from Azure Advisor, typically for Reserved Instances (RIs) or similar commitment-based pricing options to optimize costs.

    • The impacted subscriptions are classified into three recommendation types: high, medium, and low, each with recommended actions to be taken.

    Basic recommendation.png

    Advanced recommendation

    • Cost Analyzer provides personalized recommendations through Advanced recommendation, enabling users to customize settings that control reservation suggestions for compatible Azure services.

    • It presents in-depth information about purchased reservations and delivers recommendations to enhance cost efficiency and performance.

    • The subscriptions associated with the cost group are used to retrieve data on Azure resources, including their current SKU values.

    Advanced recommendation.png

    The Summary card presents an overview of current costs and reservation savings, with the purchased reservation details accessible through the View option.

    Summary.png

    This list of purchased reservations includes all resource types, regardless of their compatibility with advanced recommendations.

    Reservation purchase list.png

    Recommendations

    Recommendations are currently only available for the following resource types and are provided based on their SKU:

    • App service plan
    • SQL Database
    • SQL Managed instance
    • Virtual Machine

    Cost Analyzer provides four different types of recommendations for the supported resources:

    1. Consider Reservation

    Recommendations of this type show that you can optimize your cost utilization by purchasing a reservation with a one-year (or) three-year pricing commitment.

    2. Change SKU and Consider Reservation

    Recommendations of this type indicate that the resource's SKU should be changed to a SKU compatible with reservations and reservation can be purchased.

    3. Change SKU and Use Existing Reservation

    Recommendations of this type indicates that the resource's SKU should be changed to one that is compatible with reservations and can leverage the unused reservations.

    4. Already with Reservation

    Recommendations of this type indicates that the resources are already using the purchased reservations.

    5. Partially Reserved

    Recommendation of this type indicates that the SQL database resources have a purchased reservation and their current Vcore count is more than what they purchased.

    Refresh recommendation data

    • Reservation recommendations are updated every 48 hours from the time the cost group is created.

    • A manual refresh can be performed within the Advanced rightsizing recommendations at the root cost group to view the recommendations immediately.

    Refresh recommendation 1.png

    Recommendation settings

    The Recommendation settings button allows users to adjust the evaluation duration and the currency type to receive customized recommendations.

    Recommendation settings.png

    Visualizing resource usage

    The usage patterns of resources listed in Advanced reservation recommendations can be accessible by clicking it, with time range customizable through the Time settings option to focus on a specific interval.

    This widget will also provide information on recommendations, including both the current and recommended SKUs.

    Resource trend.png

    Resource usage by status

    The resource usage option accessible when clicking an advanced reservation recommendation provides a calendar view that depicts the status of users' Azure resources over time. Multiple toggle modes are available for better accessibility.

    The resource status considered here are:

    • Active
    • Idle

    These status are determined based on specific metric values for the respective resource types:

    • App service plan - CPU Percentage
    • SQL Database - CPU Percentage
    • SQL Managed instance - CPU Percentage
    • Virtual Machine - CPU Percentage

    Resource usage graph 1.PNG

    The Agenda view displays a day's active and idle hours in a grid format.
    Agenda 1.PNG

    Ignore recommendations

    Recommendations can be disregarded if you prefer to use the resource with its existing SKU. This can be done by selecting the recommendations and clicking Actions -> Ignore to ignore them.

    Ignore.png

    The ignored ones are accessible in Actions -> View ignored recommendations.

    Ignored recommendations.png

    Recommendation notification

    A reservation recommendation can be notified as a recommendation report, allowing a specific team (or) team member to prioritize actions for a particular resource.

    1. Select a reservation recommendation
    2. Click Actions -> Trigger notification

    Trigger notification.png

    1. Choose the desired channels (or) configure recipient mail address
    2. Click Send
      Trigger notification-reservation 2.PNG

    The recommendation data will be sent as a report to the configured channels.

    Notification can be initiated for only one recommendation at a time.

    A bell icon will appear next to any recommendation for which a notification has been triggered. Clicking the icon will reveal the notification details.

    Bell icon.png

    The View Logs button, accessible when viewing a recommendation with an active notification, will also display the details of that notification.

    View logs.png

    Below is an image of recommendation report received via Teams channel after triggering it for a reservation recommendation:

    Teams.png

    Export Reservation recommendations

    Reservation recommendations can be downloaded as an excel.

    1. Go to Action dropdown in Reservation section
    2. Click the Download as excel option

    Downloaded excel file contains the basic details of the resources and its recommendation

    Download as excel.png

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