At a Glance: Azure Utilisation Story Pages

Overview

At a Glance turns each subscription scan into six story pages. Each one shows every resource that belongs in the story, not a sample, with the evidence behind it: 30 days of utilisation, commitment coverage, cheaper SKU options and recovery posture.

The verdicts, savings and capability states come from the Spotto scan. The page shows them as they are, so the numbers on screen match the numbers in the Monthly Insights report.

Where to find it

In the Spotto Portal, open a company and navigate to Investigate -> Overview -> At a Glance. Use the tabs at the top of the page to switch between stories:

Story	What it answers
Oversized Resources	Which resources are sized and billed well above what they use?
Right SKU	Which cheaper SKUs fit the observed usage, and what does each option give up?
Schedule Candidates	Which resources run outside business hours and could be stopped or paused on a schedule?
Resilience & Recovery	Which resources are missing backup, replication or redundancy they should have?
Hybrid Benefit	Which Windows Server and SQL Server resources are worth a Hybrid Benefit review?
Commitments	How much of each resource's usage is covered by reservations and savings plans?

Select any resource name to open that resource's own page.

Choose subscriptions

Use the subscription selector to show one subscription or many. When you select several, Spotto combines them into one view per story:

• Rows from each subscription are listed together under their resource type, and each row names its subscription.
• Totals are shown per currency. Spend in AUD and USD is never added together.
• The as of time is the oldest scan among the selected subscriptions.
• Only subscriptions scanned over the same window (for example, 30 days) are combined. A subscription with a different window is listed as Different window and left out of the figures.
• A subscription scanned at a noticeably different time from the others is flagged Scanned at a different time.

Read a story page

Summary tiles and filters

The tiles at the top count the resources in the story, those with a saving, the 30-day spend and the potential monthly saving. The saving is an upper bound added across the listed resources.

The outcome chips (for example Mostly off, Oversized, Idle, Rebalance) filter the rows. On Right SKU, use With a better SKU to show only resources that have an option. Use the search box to find a resource by name.

Sections and row limits

Each story is grouped into sections by resource type. A section lists the top 100 rows first; select Show all to see the rest. Very large sections are capped at 1,000 rows per subscription. When rows are left out, the section says how many, and they are still counted in the totals.

Sparklines

Utilisation charts show the daily 95th percentile (p95) over the scan window, one point per day.

• The primary metric is the one the verdict is based on, such as CPU for a virtual machine or capacity for API Management.
• The secondary metric, such as memory, checks the primary. A resource with idle CPU but busy memory is not oversized.
• On narrower screens, the primary and secondary charts are overlaid in one chart.
• Shaded gaps are days with no data. They are never treated as the resource being off.

Verdicts

Verdict	Meaning
Oversized	Usage while running is well below the resource's size.
Idle	The resource is running but doing almost nothing.
Mostly off	The resource is stopped most of the time.
Rebalance	One metric is low while the other is busy, for example idle CPU with memory under pressure. Consider a differently shaped SKU rather than a smaller one.
No telemetry	The resource was billed, but Azure Monitor returned no data for it ("billed, not observed"). Check it rather than assume it is idle.

Expand a row with Details to see why the verdict was given, the resource's capacity, and how running time was measured.

Coverage and better SKU

RI / SP shows the share of the resource's usage covered by reservations or savings plans in the same window. A covered resource can still be oversized, but downsizing it may not reduce spend until the commitment is reassigned.

Better SKU shows a cheaper SKU that fits the observed usage. On Right SKU, the details list each option and the capabilities it would lose.

Schedule fit

A schedule candidate needs evidence that the resource really is running at the times shown. Spotto requires running time to be confirmed by an independent source, such as daily compute billing hours or the VM power state. Missing metrics alone never count as "off". Without that confirmation, a resource is not rated as a schedule candidate.

The details show business-hours and off-hours running in the company's display time zone.

Resilience capabilities

Resilience rows list the capabilities that apply to each resource type, for example backup, Site Recovery replication and placement for virtual machines, or redundancy, soft delete and versioning for storage accounts. Each capability shows its state and whether it is required.

Not collected yet means Spotto has not gathered that setting for the resource yet. It is not the same as disabled.

Empty states

• Not Yet Scanned: the selected subscriptions have not been scanned since story pages were introduced. The story appears after their next scan.
• No Candidates: the subscriptions were scanned, and nothing qualified for this story in the window shown.
• Unavailable: the story could not be loaded. Try again shortly.

Wide view and smaller screens

The widest tables have many columns. Select Wide view to collapse the menu so every column fits; select Show menu to bring it back. Spotto remembers your choice.

As the page gets narrower, lower-priority columns are hidden first. On a phone, each resource becomes a card showing its verdict, utilisation chart, p95 values, spend and saving.

In the Monthly Insights report

The report uses the same scan data:

• Oversized Resources replaces Oversized VMs and sits under Cost Optimization, with Schedule Candidates and Other Recommendations. It covers every profiled resource type, grouped by type, with utilisation charts, coverage and the Spotto verdict. Resources with no telemetry are listed separately under Billed but Not Observed.
• If an open recommendation covers a listed resource, it is shown on that row as the Recommended Action instead of being repeated under Other Recommendations.
• The backup chapter is now Resilience & Recovery, with Backup Summary and Recovery Capabilities.
• The report shows a sample of up to 50 resources per resource type and states how many were left out. Use the story pages for the full list.
• Resources that also appeared in the previous period's report are marked as previously observed.

Reports for subscriptions not yet scanned since this change show awaiting the next scan in these sections.

Troubleshooting

A story says "Not Yet Scanned"

What you're seeing: The page shows Not Yet Scanned, or a subscription in the selector is marked Not yet scanned.

Likely cause: The subscription has not been scanned since story pages were released.

How to fix: Wait for the next scheduled scan. The story appears automatically.

A subscription is left out of the totals

What you're seeing: The selector lists a subscription as Different window.

Likely cause: That subscription was scanned over a different number of days from the others, so its figures cannot be combined.

How to fix: View that subscription on its own, or wait until all selected subscriptions have been scanned again.

A resource shows "No telemetry"

What you're seeing: The verdict is No telemetry and the charts show no data.

Likely cause: Azure Monitor returned no metrics for the resource during the window, even though it was billed.

How to fix: Check that the resource exists and reports platform metrics in Azure Monitor. Until data arrives, Spotto does not rate its utilisation.