Recommendations Page
Browse, filter, and act on VM sizing recommendations across your Azure environment. Open Recommendations > VM Sizing from the left sidebar.
On This Page
Permissions
Read access to the data domain is required to view, hide, and unhide recommendations. Without it, the page is hidden from the left sidebar.
Filters
Filter controls in the page header narrow which recommendations appear in the hierarchy. All filter selections persist in the URL, so you can share a link to a specific filtered view.
- Type
- Filter to the available VM and VMSS recommendation types.
- Severity
- High, Medium, or Low. Severity reflects the magnitude of monthly savings.
- Confidence
- Very High, High, Medium, or Low. Useful for sequencing rightsizing work.
- Show hidden
- Re-includes recommendations you've previously hidden. Only appears when at least one recommendation is hidden.
- Show resolved
- Switches the page to the resolved view. See Show Resolved.
Toggle Options
Toggles open the eligible set of alternative SKUs the engine considers. Each VM has multiple pre-computed alternatives stored from the last scan, so toggle changes are instant and don't re-query the server. Open the Toggles popover from the page header to change them.
- Allow Feature Changes
- Permits CPU architecture and storage feature changes (for example, AMD ↔ ARM). When off, sub-type suffixes like
as,pls, anddsare preserved. - Allow Cross-Family SKUs
- Permits switching to a different VM family (e.g., D-series to E-series for memory-bound workloads).
- Allow Older Generations
- Permits older SKU generations (e.g., v5 to v4) for additional savings.
- Allow B-series
- Permits burstable B-series SKUs. B-series uses CPU credits and may throttle under sustained load. Automatically enables Allow Older Generations because B-series SKUs are most common in older versions.
- Exclude Restricted SKUs
- Hides SKUs with zone or location restrictions for the current subscription. Useful when restrictions appear on the recommended SKU.
- Minimum Savings
- Hides recommendations below the chosen monthly savings threshold ($0, $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500). Applied after the engine picks the cheapest eligible SKU, so it only filters the view.
Defaults
- All SKU toggles
- Off
- Minimum Savings
- $0/month
Toggle changes are free
Switching toggles never re-runs analysis. Experiment with combinations to find the savings vs. risk trade-off you want, then settle on the toggles that match your team's tolerance.
Aggressiveness lives in Scanner Settings
The Toggles popover sets which SKU types are eligible. The utilization headroom the engine sizes against — Aggressiveness — is configured in Scanner Settings and applies to the next scan.
3-Column Hierarchy
The page browses recommendations top-down: Subscriptions, then Resource Groups, then individual Resources. Each row shows a green savings badge with the monthly savings rolled up to that level.
Hidden resources appear muted
When Show hidden is on, hidden resources appear in muted gray text so you can scan past them while still seeing they exist.
Recommendation Card
Selecting a resource opens its recommendation in the detail panel. Cards expose every input the engine used so you can audit the recommendation before acting on it. From the panel header, View Performance jumps to the per-resource performance charts and View in Explorer opens the resource in Explorer.
Each card has the following sections:
- SKU Comparison
- Side-by-side current and recommended SKU with vCPUs, memory in GB, and monthly cost.
- Slot type badge
- Appears when a non-default toggle drove the selection. Values include "Cross-Family", "Older Generation", "Burstable", "Feature Change", and combinations like "Multi-Toggle".
- Pricing tier
- Shows the OS (Linux/Windows) and priority (Spot/Pay-as-you-go) the headline cost is computed against, detected from the VM itself.
- All Pricing Options
- Collapsible table comparing current SKU, recommended SKU, and savings across Linux/Windows × Pay-as-you-go/Spot.
- Availability Restrictions
- Yellow warning section. Only appears when the recommended SKU has zone or location restrictions for this subscription.
- Estimated Savings
- Monthly savings, annual savings, and percent reduction.
- Recommendation Rationale
- Plain-language explanation of why this particular SKU was chosen.
- Utilization Statistics
- P95, average, and maximum for CPU, memory, and disk over the analysis window. Memory shows "Data not available" when the diagnostic agent isn't reporting.
- Workload Analysis
- Workload type, family, analysis window, and CPU/memory/disk pressure. When the recommended family differs from the current family and the relevant toggle isn't enabled, an inline tooltip suggests turning it on.
- Confidence Analysis
- Breakdown of the factors that contributed to the confidence score, each with a description and a score.
- Considerations
- Bulleted warnings about the recommendation. Only appears when present.
- Required Actions
- Actions you must take before applying the recommendation. Only appears when present.
Pricing is in USD and excludes enterprise discounts
All cost figures come from the Azure Retail Prices API in USD. They do not include enterprise agreement discounts your organization may have negotiated. Use them for relative comparison and prioritization rather than as a final billing forecast.
Hide and Unhide
Hide a recommendation when you've decided not to act on it — for example, the VM is intentionally oversized for quarterly bursts. The Hide button at the top-right of the card opens a dialog where you can record an optional reason. Re-show hidden recommendations any time by enabling Show hidden in the page header, then clicking Unhide on the card.
Hiding only affects the UI
Hiding doesn't change the underlying scan or affect future recommendations. The recommendation continues to be regenerated on each scan; it's just hidden from the default view. Both hide and unhide actions are recorded in the activity log along with the optional reason.
Show Resolved
Enable Show resolved in the page header to switch from active recommendations to realized savings. The page header subtitle changes to "View resolved recommendations and realized savings", and the cards switch to a resolved layout.
Each resolved card shows:
- Resolution-type badge
- For example, "SKU Changed" (full downsize) or "Partially Downsized" (downsized but still oversized).
- SKU Change
- Original SKU to new SKU.
- Realized Savings
- Monthly and annual savings, calculated cumulatively against the originally detected SKU and cost. Multi-step downsizes show the full savings from the original SKU, not just the most recent step.
- Resolved date and Type
- When the change was detected and how it was classified.
Troubleshooting
My VM has been running for a week but no recommendation appears
What to check
Confirm the VM has at least the configured minimum data window of performance history (default 7 days). VMs below the threshold are intentionally excluded from first-time recommendation creation. Lower the threshold in Scanner Settings if you want shorter-running VMs included.
I enabled Allow Cross-Family but the recommendation didn't change
What to check
The current recommendation may already be the cheapest option even with cross-family allowed. The slot type badge on the card shows which toggles drove the selection. If the badge is missing, the default in-family SKU is still the cheapest match.
The recommended SKU shows availability restrictions
What to check
Some Azure SKUs are restricted by zone or location for your subscription. Enable Exclude Restricted SKUs in the Toggles popover to see the cheapest unrestricted option instead.
My Scanner Settings change hasn't taken effect
What to check
Aggressiveness and the minimum data window are read at scan time. Wait for the next scheduled scan, or trigger a manual scan to apply changes immediately.