The cloud simplifies the process of creating virtual machines, databases, and storage accounts with just a few clicks. However, many of these resources often remain active long after their usefulness has passed. This phenomenon, known as “cloud sprawl,” refers to the unmanaged growth of cloud resources, which can quietly deplete your budget each month. According to Hashi Corp’s State of Cloud Strategy Survey 2024, the primary causes of this waste include a lack of skills, idle or underused resources, and overprovisioning—factors that collectively increase costs for businesses of all sizes.
Why Should I Care About Cloud Resources?
The benefits of automation for businesses are significant and clear. Many organizations face challenges with cloud budgets that exceed their limits by about 17%. However, automation provides a straightforward solution to gain better control over these costs.
For instance, a company called VLink achieved considerable savings on its non-production cloud spending by implementing a strict automation policy for shutting down resources. This policy automatically powered down all development and test environments that were not explicitly tagged as ‘Production’ outside of regular business hours (8 AM to 6 PM). As a result of this single automated action, VLink realized a 40% reduction in their non-production cloud expenses, allowing them to reallocate that budget toward new growth initiatives.
3 Power Automate Workflows
Finding these unused cloud resources feels like hunting for ghosts. But what if you could automate the hunt? Microsoft Power Automate is a powerful tool for this exact task. Let’s look at three straightforward workflows to identify and terminate waste automatically.
1. Automate the Shutdown of Development VMs
Development and test environments are the worst offenders for cloud waste. A team needs a virtual machine for a short-term project. The project ends, but the VM continues to run, costing money. You can build a workflow that stops this waste. Create a Power Automate flow that triggers daily and queries Azure for all virtual machines with a specific tag, like “Environment: Dev.”
The flow then checks the machine’s performance metrics. If the CPU utilization has been below 5% for the last 72 hours, it executes a command to shut down the VM. This simple Azure automation does not delete anything, it simply turns off the power, slashing costs immediately. Your developers can still start it if needed, but you are no longer paying for idle time.
2. Identify and Report Orphaned Storage Disks
When you delete an Azure virtual machine, you are often given an option to delete its associated storage disk. This step is frequently missed, and the orphaned disks continue to incur storage charges month after month. You can create a flow to find them.
Build a Power Automate schedule that runs weekly. The flow will list all unattached managed disks in your subscription and will then compose a detailed email report that lists the disk names, their sizes, and the estimated monthly cost. The report acts as a clear, actionable list that could be used for cleanup purposes, and you can send it using the “Send an email” action to your IT manager or finance team for further evaluation on whether to keep or delete the disks.
3. Terminate Expired Temporary Resources
Some business projects require temporary cloud resources, like a blob storage container for a file transfer or a temporary database for data analysis. Since these resources have a finite lifespan, you need to directly integrate build expiration dates into your deployment process. For this, you can use a Power Automate flow that is triggered by a custom date field. This means that whenever you create a temporary resource, you add a descriptive tag such as “Deletion Date.”
After implementing this best practice, i.e., adding descriptive tags to cloud resources, set the flow to run daily and check for all resources that bear the “Deletion Date” tag. For each resource the flow finds, it should check whether the current date matches or is later than the “Deletion Date” property. If this condition is met, the flow deletes the resource automatically. This hands-off cleanup ensures that temporary items do not become permanent expenses. This approach not only eliminates the risk of human oversight but also uses automation to enforce financial discipline.
Troubleshoot Your Automated Workflows
Using Power Automate to create workflows is a great starting point, but it’s essential to implement them safely. Automations that delete resources are powerful and require proper controls. To ensure safety, always begin by running these flows in report-only mode. This allows you to test and simulate the automations without enforcing any actions.
For instance, you can modify the “Terminate Expired Temporary Resources” flow to send an email alert instead of deleting resources for the first couple of weeks while you monitor its performance. This approach helps you confirm that your flow logic is sound and provides an opportunity to address any errors or oversights.
Additionally, consider adding a manual approval step for high-risk actions, such as deleting large storage disks. This ensures that your automations are beneficial and protect your resources rather than working against you.
Take Control of Your Cloud Spend
These three Power Automate workflows provide an excellent foundation for businesses utilizing Microsoft Azure. They enable you to transition from a reactive to a proactive approach, ensuring that you only pay for the resources you actively use.
Stop overspending on idle cloud resources. Take control of your cloud environment and start saving today. Contact us to implement these Power Automate workflows and optimize your Azure spending.