Upgrades and retirements

Overview

Upgrades & retirements shows the Azure resources in a cost management group that run on SKUs, VM series, or services that Azure is retiring, or for which Azure Advisor recommends an upgrade. Most entries come from Azure Advisor recommendations in the Service Upgrade and Retirement subcategory. Turbo360 adds VM series retirements that Azure Advisor does not list for a resource, and VM reservations that reach end of sale. Each entry shows its impact, its retirement date, and the resources it affects, so you can plan migrations before a retirement date arrives.

You open Upgrades & retirements from the Upgrades & retirements tile on Cost Analyzer > [Cost management group] > Overview > Essentials.

Business value

Azure retires VM series, SKUs, and services on published dates, and affected workloads can lose support or stop working after the date. Upgrades & retirements finds the affected resources across all subscriptions in your cost management group in one place. Teams can then plan the migration, assign the work, and track what they have already decided to ignore.

Prerequisites

• A cost management group with mapped subscriptions and service principals.
• The Reader role for the service principals on each subscription. This feature needs no other role.
• At least one completed scan at the root cost management group. Until the first scan completes, the tile shows Scan pending or Scan in progress.
• Imported reservations, if you want to see VM reservation entries. Reservation entries appear only for reservations that Cost Analyzer has already imported.

Required permissions

Upgrades & retirements uses the existing Other recommendations permission, which you set for a custom role under Specify optimization tab permissions.

For more information, see Roles and permissions in Cost Analyzer.

Dependencies

• Azure Resource Graph access: Turbo360 reads Azure Advisor recommendations and the sizes of virtual machines and VM scale sets through Azure Resource Graph, using the service principals of the root cost management group.
• Azure Advisor: Turbo360 uses active recommendations in the Reliability category and the Service Upgrade and Retirement subcategory. Recommendations that you resolved, dismissed, or postponed in Azure Advisor do not appear. To review these recommendations in the Azure portal, go to Advisor > All recommendations and filter Subcategory by Service Upgrade and Retirement.
• Notification channels: to send notifications, configure notification channels, and email templates for SaaS, in Settings.

How it works

Sources. Turbo360 builds the list from three kinds of entries. Azure Advisor recommendations are the main source. Turbo360 reads the active recommendations in the Service Upgrade and Retirement subcategory. Turbo360 also checks every virtual machine and VM scale set against a built-in catalogue of announced VM series retirements, for example the Dv2, Dsv2, Av2, Fsv2, and Lsv2 series. It adds a catalogue entry only when Azure Advisor has no recommendation for that resource. The third kind is VM reservations whose series has a reserved instance end-of-sale date in the same catalogue. These entries read {series}-series reserved instances: end of sale.

Scan and scope. Turbo360 scans the account at the root cost management group as part of the regular Cost Analyzer optimization refresh. Each cost management group reads the stored results and applies its own scope, which includes its mapped subscriptions and scope filters. The dialogs have no refresh action.

Tile status. The tile subtext shows one of the following states: Scan pending, Scan in progress, No recommendations found, or Last scanned {date}. When the scan is complete and resources are affected, the tile shows the number of affected resources.

Impact and dates. For Azure Advisor recommendations, Turbo360 shows the impact, retirement date, and retiring feature that Azure Advisor reports. If Azure Advisor gives no retiring feature name, Turbo360 shows the recommendation text instead. The impact of a recommendation is the highest impact among its resources. VM series and reservation entries always have High impact. Catalogue entries show the retirement date from the catalogue, and reservation entries show the end-of-sale date in the feature text. Azure Advisor recommendations without a date show Upgrade recommended, and VM series without a date show End of sale.

Recommended SKU. If the resource has a rightsizing recommendation that does not point to another retiring series, Turbo360 shows that SKU. Otherwise, for a virtual machine on a retiring VM series, Turbo360 suggests the same size on the replacement series, for example Standard_D4s_v3 to Standard_D4s_v5. For other resources, it shows the recommended action from Azure Advisor. When Turbo360 cannot work out a same-size replacement for a VM series entry, it shows Migrate to {series} series.

Warning icons. Resources with an upgrade or retirement recommendation also show a warning icon in the Rightsizing, Optimization schedule resource, and Workflows grids. The icons are indicators only and do not open the dialog.

Ignored resources. Ignoring applies to a resource, not to a single recommendation or group. An ignored resource disappears from Upgrades & retirements in every cost management group, for every recommendation on that resource. When an Ignore until date passes, the resource appears again.

Steps

Use these steps to review recommendations, ignore resources, review and remove ignored resources, trigger notifications, and download Excel files. Start from Cost Analyzer > [Cost management group] > Overview > Essentials, and click the Upgrades & retirements tile.

Review recommendations and affected resources

Reviewing recommendations shows what Azure is retiring, how many resources it affects, and when.

1. Click the Upgrades & retirements tile. The Upgrades & retirements - {group name} dialog opens.
2. Review the summary at the top. It shows the number of resources and recommendations, the count of resources by impact (High, Med, Low), and the next retirement date.
3. Review the grid. The columns are Recommendation, Impact, Affected resources, Retirement date, and Retiring feature. Click the external link icon in a row to open the Microsoft guidance for it, when available.
4. Click a recommendation to see its affected resources. The columns are Resource, Current SKU, Recommended SKU, Subscription, Resource group, Region, and Managed in. A note above the grid shows how many days remain before the retirement.
5. Click the external link icon next to a resource to open it in the Azure portal.

The Managed in column lists the Cost Analyzer features that already manage the resource: Rightsizing, Schedule, Reservation, or Workflow. It shows only the features that you can read.

Ignore resources

Ignoring resources removes them from the list when you have already planned for the retirement or accept the risk.

1. Open a recommendation to see its affected resources.
2. Select the resources to ignore.
3. Click Actions and select Ignore.
4. In the Ignore resources dialog, select Ignore always or Ignore until and choose a date.
5. Optionally, enter a Description.
6. Click Continue.

View and remove ignored resources

Viewing the ignored list shows which resources are hidden and why, and removing a resource from the list shows it again.

1. In the Upgrades & retirements dialog, click Actions and select View ignored resources.
2. Review the Ignored resources - {group name} dialog. It shows Ignored on, Ignore until, and Reason for each resource. Ignore until shows Always when no end date is set.
3. To show resources again, select them, click Actions, and select Remove ignored resources.
4. Click Continue in the confirmation dialog.

Trigger a notification

Triggering a notification sends the details of selected resources to your team through email or notification channels.

1. Open a recommendation to see its affected resources.
2. Select 1 to 10 resources. Selecting resources needs Other recommendations: Manage.
3. Click Actions and select Trigger notification.
4. In the Trigger notifications dialog, under Notification settings, enter the Recipient email address on SaaS, and optionally select an Email template and enter an Email subject.
5. In the Channels grid, select the notification channels. For email (SMTP) channels, you can also enter a recipient, template, and subject.
6. Click Send.

Download an Excel file

Downloading an Excel file exports the list so you can share it or track the migration outside Turbo360.

1. Open the dialog that you want to export: the recommendations, the resources of a recommendation, or the ignored resources.
2. Click Actions and select Download as Excel.

Configuration

The following table lists the options in the Ignore resources and Trigger notifications dialogs.

Permission behavior

• A user without Other recommendations: Read does not see the Upgrades & retirements tile, and the notification link does not open the dialog.
• A user with Other recommendations: Read can open the dialogs, view the ignored list, and download all Excel files. The selection checkboxes, Ignore, and Remove ignored resources are not available, and Trigger notification is disabled because the user cannot select resources.
• A user with Other recommendations: Manage can select resources, ignore them, and remove them from the ignored list.

Example scenario

Arjun leads the platform team that owns a cost management group with 40 subscriptions. He opens the Upgrades & retirements tile and sees that several virtual machines run on a VM series that Azure is retiring in the next six months. He opens the recommendation, selects the virtual machines owned by the data team, and clicks Trigger notification to send the details to the team's Microsoft Teams channel. He selects a test virtual machine that the team plans to delete, ignores it until the end of the quarter, and downloads the Excel file to track the remaining migrations in the team's backlog.

Limitations

• Turbo360 updates the data only with the optimization refresh. A subscription that you add or change appears after the next scan.
• Subscriptions marked Unsupported on the Cost imports screen don't appear in Upgrades & retirements.
• Turbo360 shows service retirements and SKU, tier, or VM series retirements. It does not show retirements of versions, such as runtime, protocol, TLS, API, SDK, language, operating system, library, and extension versions. It also does not show recommendations that name no service, SKU, tier, or VM series. The Azure portal can therefore list more recommendations in the Service Upgrade and Retirement subcategory than Turbo360 shows.
• The recommendations do not show cost or savings.
• Notifications are manual only. There is no scheduled alert for upgrades and retirements.
• You can send a notification for at most 10 resources at a time.
• Ignoring applies to a resource across all recommendations and all cost management groups.

Troubleshooting

1. The tile shows Scan pending, or the dialog says that recommendations are being updated
   Cause: The first scan at the root cost management group has not completed.
   Fix: Wait for the next optimization refresh, then refresh the page. If the tile shows Scan in progress, wait for the scan to finish.

2. An expected resource is missing from the list
   Cause: The resource is ignored in any cost management group, it is outside the scope filters of the group, you resolved, dismissed, or postponed the recommendation in Azure Advisor, its subscription is marked Unsupported on the Cost imports screen, the recommendation is about a version or names no service, SKU, tier, or VM series, or the reservation is not imported in Cost Analyzer.
   Fix: Check View ignored resources, the scope filters of the group, and the Cost imports screen for subscriptions marked Unsupported. In Azure Advisor, filter Subcategory by Service Upgrade and Retirement to confirm that the recommendation is active. For a reservation entry, confirm that the reservation is imported.

3. A red note says that subscriptions were not refreshed in the last scan
   Cause: Turbo360 could not refresh the data of those subscriptions in the last scan, for example because the service principal failed.
   Fix: Check the service principal credentials and access for those subscriptions.

4. Trigger notification is disabled
   Cause: No resources are selected, more than 10 are selected, or you do not have the Manage permission, so you cannot select resources.
   Fix: Select 1 to 10 resources, or ask for the Other recommendations: Manage permission.

5. The ignore dates in the Excel file differ from the grid
   Cause: The Excel file uses UTC and the grid uses your local time.
   Fix: Convert the UTC time to your time zone.

FAQs

1. Where does the data come from?
   The main source is Azure Advisor recommendations in the Service Upgrade and Retirement subcategory. Turbo360 also checks virtual machines and VM scale sets against its own catalogue of announced VM series retirements, and adds VM reservations that reach end of sale.

2. How often does Turbo360 update the list?
   Turbo360 updates it with the regular Cost Analyzer optimization refresh, which scans the account at the root cost management group.

3. If I ignore a resource in one cost management group, does it still appear in other groups?
   No. Ignoring is account-wide and applies to the resource for every recommendation and every cost management group.

4. What happens when the Ignore until date passes?
   The resource appears in the list again.

5. What do End of sale and Upgrade recommended mean?
   They appear when there is no retirement date. End of sale applies to VM series and reservations from the Turbo360 catalogue. Upgrade recommended applies to recommendations from Azure Advisor.

Related articles

• Other recommendations
• Cost management groups
• Roles and permissions in Cost Analyzer