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# Best practices

## How do you reduce the cost?

* Azure advisor cost tab is a good place to start
* Auto shutdown on dev/qa resources
* Utilize cool/archive storage where possible
* Reserved instances
* Configure alerts when billing exceeds an expected level
* Use policy yo restrict access to certain expensive resources
* Auto scaling resources
* Downsize when resources over-provisioned
* Ensure every resource has an owner (tags)
* Spot Pricing - Ability to use VM when nobody is using it for a discounted price, but when someone pays in full you get kicked of