Sample Customer — an executive overview, savings roadmap, and operational recommendations, built the same way Maintech structures a live Azure engagement.
Sample document notice. All company names, subscriptions, resources, costs, counts, utilization figures, and savings estimates in this document are illustrative. This document demonstrates report format and analysis approach and must not be interpreted as an assessment of a real customer environment.
Business impact, estate scale, savings range, and decisions.
Cost profile and resource composition.
Illustrative recommendations and confidence.
Sample resource-level evidence and validation steps.
Sequencing, ownership, and benefit tracking.
Illustrative calculation basis and constraints.
Assessment approach. This sample follows a FinOps-oriented structure: understand the estate, quantify addressable opportunities, prioritize low-risk actions, validate workload constraints, implement controlled changes, and verify realized savings in Azure Cost Management.
Sample Customer operates two illustrative Azure subscriptions with a normalized combined run rate of approximately $185,000 per month. The sample identifies approximately $72,000 annually in near-term modeled savings and a further $84,000 annually in conditional upside — a combined illustrative opportunity of approximately $156,000 annually.
Ranked by annual estimate — each requires an executive decision to proceed.
Executive decision: approve representative host-pool pilot
Executive decision: approve test/dev resizing wave
Executive decision: confirm ownership and dependencies
Executive decision: approve cleanup after owner review
Executive decision: commission workload-specific validation
The following summarizes principal sample resource categories in each illustrative subscription. Other inventoried resources include extensions, network interfaces, private endpoints, restore point collections, data integration objects, monitoring components, and other ARM resource types not listed separately.
| Resource type | Production | Non-Production | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual machines | 390 | 40 | 430 |
| Managed disks | 550 | 85 | 635 |
| Storage accounts | 70 | 50 | 120 |
| App Service plans | 35 | 35 | 70 |
| Snapshots | 100 | 5 | 105 |
| Public IP addresses | 50 | 10 | 60 |
| Log Analytics workspaces | 12 | 4 | 16 |
| SQL VM registrations | 35 | 10 | 45 |
| Recovery Services vaults | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| AVD host pools | 55 | 0 | 55 |
| Azure file shares | 560 | 40 | 600 |
| Azure Firewall instances | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Other inventoried resources | 2,689 | 720 | 3,409 |
| Total inventoried resources | 4,550 | 1,000 | 5,550 |
Inventory note. Azure file shares are data-plane objects shown separately for operational visibility. The total inventoried resource count is based on the ARM Resources inventory and does not add file-share counts a second time.
The Production Subscription contains approximately 4,550 inventoried resources and represents most of the illustrative run rate. The Non-Production Subscription contains approximately 1,000 resources supporting development, test, and validation workloads.
| Service | Illustrative monthly cost | Assessment position |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | $80,000 | Primary optimization area |
| Virtual Machines | $39,000 | Primary optimization area |
| Backup | $24,000 | Policy & coverage review |
| Defender for Cloud | $9,000 | Policy & coverage review |
| VM Licenses | $7,600 | Monitor / validate |
| SQL Managed Instance | $5,200 | Monitor / validate |
| Azure Firewall | $2,300 | Monitor / validate |
| Sentinel | $2,000 | Monitor / validate |
| Virtual Network | $1,500 | Monitor / validate |
| Near-term recommendation | Monthly | Annual | Confidence | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual desktop optimization | $4,333 | $52,000 | High | Medium |
| Non-production VM rightsizing | $833 | $10,000 | High | Medium |
| Unused App Service plans | $542 | $6,500 | Very high | Low |
| Unattached disk cleanup | $183 | $2,200 | High | Low |
| Log Analytics tuning | $108 | $1,300 | High | Medium |
| Opportunity | Annual model | Required evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Production server rightsizing | $18,000 | Guest memory, throughput, dependencies, maintenance windows |
| Storage lifecycle & tiering | $48,000 | Capacity, access frequency, transactions, redundancy, lifecycle policy |
| Backup policy & protected-instance review | $15,000 | RTO/RPO, retention, protected instances, recovery duties |
| Security plan alignment | $3,000 | Control coverage, server inventory, multi-cloud scope, license overlap |
No double counting. Near-term virtual desktop and non-production VM estimates are separate. App Service, disk, and Log Analytics savings are different services. Conditional items are excluded from the near-term total.
The sample environment includes 55 virtual desktop host pools. A conservative utilization filter identifies representative D8- and D16-class session hosts with low average CPU and moderate peak CPU. The sample savings model assumes a 35% reduction in candidate compute through rightsizing, autoscaling, or improved session density.
| Sample host | Current size | Avg CPU | Peak CPU | Monthly compute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WVD-PROD-01 | Standard_D16as_v6 | 6.2% | 27.4% | $725 |
| WVD-PROD-02 | Standard_D16ls_v5 | 8.3% | 46.6% | $690 |
| WVD-APP-01 | Standard_D8as_v5 | 3.8% | 15.4% | $490 |
| WVD-APP-02 | Standard_D8as_v5 | 5.1% | 24.2% | $470 |
| WVD-OPS-01 | Standard_D8s_v5 | 2.5% | 8.1% | $600 |
| WVD-OPS-02 | Standard_D8as_v5 | 3.0% | 11.8% | $605 |
The sample Non-Production Subscription includes low-utilization application and utility servers. A 25% model represents a controlled combination of downsizing and scheduled shutdowns.
| Sample VM | Current size | Avg CPU | Peak CPU | Monthly compute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| APP-DEV-01 | Standard_D4as_v5 | 3.0% | 9.9% | $160 |
| APP-TEST-01 | Standard_D4as_v5 | 4.1% | 18.9% | $155 |
| UTILITY-DEV-01 | Standard_D4ads_v5 | 8.7% | 22.6% | $150 |
| WEB-TEST-01 | Standard_D4as_v6 | 2.8% | 14.5% | $145 |
| BATCH-DEV-01 | Standard_D4ads_v6 | 6.1% | 28.2% | $140 |
The sample includes billable App Service plans that report zero hosted sites — high-confidence candidates after ownership and dependency validation.
| Subscription | Sample plan | SKU | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production | ASP-FUNCTIONS-PROD-01 | EP1 | $170 |
| Production | ASP-DATA-PROD-01 | S1 | $90 |
| Non-Production | ASP-WEB-DEV-01 | S2 | $160 |
| Non-Production | ASP-PORTAL-DEV-01 | P1v3 | $130 |
The sample report identifies unattached managed disks after excluding recovery or seed-pattern resources. Each requires owner and recovery validation before deletion.
| Subscription | Sample disk | Size (GiB) | SKU | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Production | APP-PROD-OLD-DATA-01 | 256 | Premium_LRS | $38 |
| Production | APP-PROD-OLD-OS-01 | 256 | StandardSSD_LRS | $24 |
| Production | IMAGE-ARCHIVE-DATA-01 | 375 | Standard_LRS | $22 |
| Non-Production | DB-DEV-SAMPLE-OS-01 | 127 | Premium_LRS | $20 |
The illustrative tuning opportunity applies only to Log Analytics platform cost. Security analytics and SIEM control coverage should be reviewed separately and never reduced solely to meet a cost target.
| Sample data type | 30-day ingestion (GB) |
|---|---|
| ApplicationTraces | 1,250 |
| SecurityEvents | 820 |
| AzureFirewallNetworkRule | 430 |
| ApplicationMetrics | 280 |
| Heartbeat | 120 |
| StorageBlobLogs | 85 |
Storage, backup, security licensing, and production server compute should be evaluated with workload-specific evidence. The sample treats these as conditional rather than committed savings.
| Area | Illustrative monthly cost | Required evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | $80,000 | Capacity, tiers, transactions, redundancy, lifecycle policy |
| Backup | $24,000 | RTO/RPO, retention, protected instances, cyber-recovery requirements |
| Defender for Cloud | $9,000 | Plan coverage, server inventory, multi-cloud scope, license overlap |
| Production server candidates | $12,000 | Memory, IOPS, throughput, dependencies, maintenance windows |
Database, domain-controller, ERP, and high-availability workloads are excluded from near-term CPU-only rightsizing. Changes require memory, IOPS, latency, licensing, failover, and recovery validation.
Backup savings must be governed by customer recovery objectives, retention duties, legal requirements, and cyber-recovery architecture. The sample does not recommend bulk deletion of recovery resources.
Defender for Cloud, SIEM, Azure Firewall, and Log Analytics changes must be coordinated with security operations. Security control coverage should not be reduced solely for cost savings.
Operational principle. Remove demonstrably unused resources first, then rightsize with workload evidence, then optimize commitments. Purchasing reservations or savings plans before completing rightsizing can lock in unnecessary capacity.
Validate and remove unused App Service plans and unattached disks.
Pilot virtual desktop and non-production VM rightsizing.
Expand approved changes and tune Log Analytics.
Complete storage, backup, security & production workload reviews.
| Decision | Owner | Target | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approve empty App Service plan validation | Application & cloud operations | 30 days | Open |
| Approve unattached disk quarantine & cleanup | Infrastructure owners | 30 days | Open |
| Approve representative virtual desktop pilot | EUC owner | 45 days | Open |
| Approve non-production VM resizing wave | Infrastructure owner | 45 days | Open |
| Approve Log Analytics data review | Security operations | 60 days | Open |
| Commission conditional service reviews | Platform leadership | 90 days | Open |
The sample normalizes a three-month cost period to a monthly run rate. Annual estimates equal monthly estimates multiplied by 12. Virtual desktop savings use 35% of candidate compute. Non-production server savings use 25%. Unused resources use current sample cost. Log Analytics uses 15%. Conditional opportunities require customer-specific evidence before inclusion in an approved business case.
| Confidence | Definition |
|---|---|
| Very high | Unused billable resource with direct cost evidence; ownership validation remains required. |
| High | Cost and utilization evidence support action; workload testing remains required. |
| Medium | Opportunity is plausible but policy, memory, throughput, security, or licensing evidence is incomplete. |
| Low | Additional platform-specific data is required before a savings commitment. |
This customer sample demonstrates how an Azure cost optimization assessment can communicate environment scale, cost drivers, near-term savings of approximately $72,000 annually, and conditional opportunity of approximately $84,000 annually — while preserving operational controls.
For an actual customer assessment, replace the illustrative data with customer-approved inventory, cost, utilization, recovery, security, and licensing evidence, then validate each recommendation through the customer change-management process.