Azure Advisor Documentation

Overview

Azure Advisor is a service that helps you follow best practices to optimize your Azure deployments. It analyzes your resource configurations and usage telemetry to provide actionable recommendations. Advisor recommendations help you increase the security and performance of your services, reduce costs, and improve reliability.

Advisor examines the resources that make up your application, such as virtual machines, storage accounts, and Azure SQL databases, and then provides recommendations that are tailored to those specific resources.

You can access Advisor recommendations through the Azure portal, REST API, and CLI.

Key Features

Cost Optimization: Identifies underutilized or idle resources, suggesting ways to reduce spending.
Performance Improvement: Recommends configuration changes to enhance the performance of your applications.
High Availability: Suggests actions to improve the resilience and availability of your services.
Security Enhancements: Highlights potential security vulnerabilities and recommends remediation steps.
Operational Excellence: Provides guidance on best practices for managing and monitoring your Azure environment.

Getting Started with Azure Advisor

Accessing and using Azure Advisor is straightforward. Here’s how:

Navigate to Azure Advisor: In the Azure portal, search for "Advisor" or find it within the "All services" menu.
View Recommendations: Advisor categorizes recommendations by Cost, Performance, High Availability, Security, and Operational Excellence. Click on a category to see specific suggestions.
Review and Apply: Each recommendation includes a description, the impacted resource, and the expected impact (e.g., cost savings, performance gain). Click "Learn more" for detailed guidance and follow the steps to apply the recommendation.
Actionable Insights: Advisor provides direct links to relevant Azure services or documentation to help you implement the suggested changes.

Tip: Regularly review your Advisor recommendations to ensure your Azure environment is continuously optimized.

Best Practices for Using Advisor

Integrate into Workflows: Make reviewing Advisor recommendations a part of your regular cloud management routine.
Prioritize Recommendations: Focus on recommendations with the highest impact, especially those related to security and cost.
Enable Alerts: Configure alerts for critical recommendations so you are notified immediately of important changes.
Use the API: For programmatic management, integrate Advisor's API into your automation scripts and dashboards.
Provide Feedback: Use the feedback mechanism within Advisor to help improve the quality of recommendations.

Azure Advisor API Reference

The Azure Advisor REST API allows you to programmatically retrieve recommendations, manage suppression of recommendations, and integrate Advisor insights into your custom tooling and dashboards.

Key API Operations include:

List Recommendations: Retrieve all recommendations for a given resource or subscription.
Get Recommendation Details: Fetch detailed information about a specific recommendation.
Suppress Recommendation: Mark a recommendation as suppressed if it's not applicable or has been addressed manually.

You can find the full API documentation on the Microsoft Docs.

Example using Azure CLI to list recommendations:

az advisor recommendation list --resource-group MyResourceGroup --resource-type Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines --resource-name MyVM

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Recommendations not appearing: Ensure that Advisor has had sufficient time to analyze your resources. For new resources, it may take a few hours for recommendations to become available. Check that you have the necessary permissions to view recommendations.

Applying a recommendation fails: Review the detailed steps provided with the recommendation. Sometimes, manual intervention or specific prerequisites are required. Consult the linked Azure documentation for detailed guidance.

Recommendation is not relevant: Use the "Suppress" option in Azure Advisor to hide recommendations that do not apply to your specific scenario. You can also provide feedback to improve future recommendations.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: How often are recommendations updated?

A: Advisor recommendations are updated regularly, typically on a daily basis, as Azure analyzes your resource configurations and usage patterns.

Q: Can I automate the application of recommendations?

A: While Advisor provides guidance, directly automating the application of all recommendations can be complex due to varying impacts. However, you can use Azure Automation or custom scripts with the Advisor API to automate certain actions based on recommendation data.

Q: What if a recommendation is not applicable to my workload?

A: You can suppress recommendations that are not relevant to your specific environment or have been addressed through other means. This helps to declutter your view and focus on actionable insights.