Unused Resources Use Case

In this use case, we search for resources that are unused.

Usually, resources identified that you would take action against, will be long forgotten environments, cancelled projects where infrastructure was provisioned but project hasn't really started, partially deleted environments where f.e. disks were kept for "just in case we need the data", unattached resources and so on.

Actions to take against identified resources

Default action to take against unused resources is delete. If you are unsure or require greater confirmation, you can wait some time and if the resource is still showing up as unused take action after.

In data-sensitive scenarios, where database, storage account or any other resource that holds actual data shows as unused, you can first take a cost-effective backup, such as exporting database to file and storing it in Archive Tier storage account and deleting the source resource afterwards.

False positives

We estimate that this use case will have 90% - 97% confidence. Initial confidence of 90% will grow the longer the resource is identified as unused.

Sometimes resources are being used in cycles, therefore it’s possible that resource will show up as unused for 3 months, but then the "usage period" will start and after this period has finished, it will go back to being unused, this would be example of false positive. You can decide to ignore this resource e.g. by applying Manually Marked use case or if possible, delete the environment during the no-usage period, re-create it when necessary to save costs.