The Cost of Orphaned Resources in Azure Cloud

Posted 06th February 2025

Are Orphaned resources inflating your Azure Cloud Spend?

The Impact on Your Business’s Azure spend

Businesses are constantly seeking ways to optimise costs and improve efficiency of cloud computing. One often overlooked area that can significantly impact your bottom line is the presence of orphaned resources—unused or unattached cloud assets that continue to incur costs. This article delves into the financial implications of orphaned resources and offers strategies to mitigate their impact on your business.

Understanding Orphaned Resources

Orphaned resources are cloud assets that are no longer in use but have not been deleted. These can include unattached disks, unused public IP addresses, idle virtual machines, and more. They often result from incomplete decommissioning processes, where associated resources are not removed when a primary resource is deleted.

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This is common as businesses move to Azure and start to deploy and decommission in public cloud. When previously working on-premises data storage and compute may have been less of a commodity as the underlying hardware, servers and storage devices had already been paid for, so leaving compute or storage provisioned unnecessarily may have been less of a financial implication. With public cloud you pay for everything you consume, your cloud consumption, so ensuring you are only consuming the resources you need at all times is essential for managing your cloud spend.

Chris Henry, Head of Azure CoE

Financial Impact on Your Business

The cost of orphaned resources can accumulate quickly, leading to significant unnecessary expenses for your business. For example, unattached disks in Azure continue to incur storage costs even if they are not in use. Similarly, unused public IP addresses and idle virtual machines can add to your monthly cloud bill without providing any value.

A case study from Microsoft highlighted that a customer was able to save approximately $7,000 per month by deleting unused orphaned disks and \$100 per month by removing unused public IPs. This demonstrates the substantial savings that can be achieved by identifying and eliminating orphaned resources.

Chris Henry also mentions the potential security and misconfiguration impact of some orphaned resources

“Some orphaned resources in Azure do not have a financial cost, such as Network Interfaces (NICs), Route Tables and Network Security Groups (NSGs) but can lead to misconfiguration of environments if an incorrect NSG or Route Table is left behind as it may be inadvertently associated with an existing subnet. This could also have a security impact if the orphaned NSG or Route Table is not configured in line with your standards or governance, such as overly permissive NSG rules or Route Tables with user defined routes directly to the internet, bypassing any checks on the outbound data traffic. Similarly, an orphaned NIC, although representing no financial cost will be taking up valuable IP address spacing in your environment.”

Identifying Orphaned Resources and Strategies for Mitigation

To manage and reduce the cost of orphaned resources, it is essential to identify them effectively. Cloud providers including Azure offer tools and workbooks to help users find and manage these resources. The Azure Orphan Resources Workbook, for instance, uses Azure Resource Graph queries to pull data about resources and provides a comprehensive view of potential orphaned assets.

Strategies for Mitigation

Regular Audits: Conduct regular audits of your cloud environment to identify and remove orphaned resources. This can be automated using scripts or tools provided by the cloud service provider.
Tagging and Documentation: Implement a robust tagging and documentation strategy to keep track of resource ownership and usage. This helps in quickly identifying resources that are no longer needed.
Automated Cleanup: Use automation tools to clean up orphaned resources. For example, Azure Automation can be configured to delete unattached disks or unused public IPs after a certain period.
Cost Management Tools: Leverage cost management tools provided by cloud providers to monitor and optimise your cloud spending. These tools can alert you to unusual spending patterns that may indicate the presence of orphaned resources.

Preventing Orphaned Disks on VM Creation

When deploying a virtual machine in Azure there is an option both the OS and Data disks to Delete disk with VM. This means that when you delete the VM in the future it will also delete those disks automatically at the same time and preventing the orphaned disks from remaining in the first place.

You can also retrospectively update the delete behaviour of a VMs disks using Azure CLI or Powershell.

Start now – find your orphaned resources and save on your Azure costs

Orphaned resources in the cloud can lead to significant, unnecessary costs if not managed properly. By regularly auditing your cloud environment, implementing effective tagging, and using automation tools, you can minimise the financial impact of these unused resources. Proactive management of orphaned resources not only reduces costs but also simplifies cloud operations and enhances overall efficiency.

By addressing the issue of orphaned resources, your business can achieve substantial cost savings and ensure that your cloud infrastructure is running as efficiently as possible. This not only improves your bottom line but also allows you to reinvest those savings into other critical areas of your business. Contact BCN for help.

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When businesses move from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, they need to undergo a significant mindset shift. On-premises setups come with fixed costs, making expenses predictable and tied to physical hardware and maintenance. In contrast, cloud computing operates on a pay-as-you-go model, where costs are directly linked to resource usage. This requires businesses to adopt a more dynamic approach to cost management, continuously monitoring and optimising their cloud resources to avoid unnecessary expenses.

Chris Henry, Head of Azure CoE

How BCN Can Help

BCN’s Managed Azure Service is designed to optimise your Microsoft Azure environment for peak performance, backed by expert resources and industry-leading support. By leveraging BCN’s expertise as Solutions Partner for Infrastructure (Azure), your business can ensure that orphaned resources are identified and eliminated promptly, reducing unnecessary costs. BCN provides continuous monitoring, regular audits, and automated cleanup processes tailored to your specific needs. This proactive approach can minimise the financial impact of orphaned resources whilst enhancing the overall efficiency and security of your cloud infrastructure.

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