Invisible Azure Waste
In most Azure environments we take a look at, there’s a familiar pattern: resources that were once useful but are now just quietly sitting there, still active and still costing money. Old storage accounts, virtual machines, application gateways and even unused AKS clusters. They serve no purpose anymore, yet they quietly drain budgets. What’s striking is that most organizations don’t even realize it’s happening. This kind of waste builds up over time and often goes unnoticed until someone takes a closer look.
Microsoft provides great tools, and your cloud provider ensures access, but it’s up to you to keep costs in check.
Why Orphaned Resources Are a Problem
Orphaned resources are assets no longer tied to active workloads. Microsoft describes them as remnants of past deployments, like public IP addresses not linked to any device or network interfaces detached from VMs. They’re unwanted because they inflate your bill, sometimes by thousands monthly, while adding no value. They also clutter your environment, increasing complexity and security risks. It’s like paying taxes on vacant lots that serve no purpose. Almost every organization has them. As teams test ideas or migrate systems, resources get left behind.
When no one owns cleanup, costs accumulate. What’s more, unused resources complicate your environment, making security oversights more likely and slowing care and feeding of mission‑critical workloads.
The Hidden Cost of Clutter
The financial impact is real. The Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report estimates that up to 25% of cloud budgets, hundreds of thousands annually for some companies, goes to unused resources. That’s money you could redirect to innovation or growth. One organization, using Microsoft’s tools, found hundreds of orphaned public IPs and NICs. Removing them saved €3.500 a month, while clearing out unused load balancers and security groups streamlined operations.
Microsoft’s Tools: A Starting Point
Microsoft offers intuitive ways to spot orphaned resources. Dashboards like the Orphaned Resources Workbook scan subscriptions and highlight assets like idle load balancers in minutes. It’s a great start, but it’s not automatic or without risk.
The Orphaned Resources Workbook is regularly updated by Microsoft and the community and supports over 30 categories, spanning compute, storage, databases, networking, and more.
The Orphaned Resources Workbook lets you filter by resource type, region or subscription, making it easier to prioritize what to clean up. But it doesn’t delete anything automatically, and in complex environments, it may miss edge cases—so it should be used as a guide, not a guarantee.
The Strategic Fix: DevOps, IaC, and Microsoft’s Frameworks
Cleaning up orphaned resources is a good step, but preventing them is as always much smarter. DevOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) are key. IaC defines resources in code, ensuring they’re tracked and removed when obsolete. DevOps practices, like automated pipelines, enforce rules to shut down test environments or flag unused assets like application gateways before they become orphans. This builds a system where clutter doesn’t take root.
Microsoft’s Well-Architected Framework and Cloud Adoption Framework provide a strategic foundation. They’re more than technical guides and align Azure with your goals through governance, tagging, and regular reviews. These important frameworks ensure resources like NSGs or public IPs serve a purpose, preventing waste. By combining these frameworks with DevOps and IaC, you stop orphaned resources at the source, keeping your Azure environment efficient and cost-effective.
By combining people, process and purpose, supported by DevOps and IaC, you can turn your Azure environment from an unpredictable expense into a streamlined platform aligned with your strategic goals.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to the cloud. That’s why we meet you where you are. Contact us today to start your journey with DevOps Masterminds.