Governance Policies Cost Sku Selection - Azure/az-prototype GitHub Wiki

Sku Selection

Governance policies for Sku Selection

Domain: cost

Patterns

Name Description
Environment-tiered SKU selection Select SKUs based on environment: dev/POC uses lowest viable tier, production uses appropriate performance tier with redundancy

Anti-Patterns

Description Instead
Do not use the same SKU for dev and production environments Use tiered SKU selection — burstable/basic/consumption for dev, standard/premium for production
Do not select SKUs based solely on feature availability Balance features against cost — many premium features are unnecessary for POC validation
Do not use Classic or deprecated resource types Use current-generation resource types (StorageV2, Gen5 SQL, Flexible PostgreSQL)

References

Checks (5)

Check Severity Description
WAF-COST-SKU-001 Required Select appropriate compute SKU based on environment tier — B-series for dev/POC, D-series for production
WAF-COST-SKU-002 Required Select appropriate database SKU based on environment tier — serverless/burstable for dev, provisioned/GP for production
WAF-COST-SKU-003 Required Select appropriate storage redundancy — LRS for dev/POC, GRS or ZRS for production; use tiered access (Hot/Cool/Archive)
WAF-COST-SKU-004 Required Select appropriate networking SKU — Basic for dev/POC, Standard for production
WAF-COST-SKU-005 Required Select appropriate cache SKU — Basic C0 for dev/POC, Standard C1+ for staging, Premium for production clustering

WAF-COST-SKU-001

Select appropriate compute SKU based on environment tier — B-series for dev/POC, D-series for production

Severity: Required
Rationale: Compute is typically the largest cost driver; right-sizing by environment prevents overspending on dev while ensuring production performance
Agents: terraform-agent, bicep-agent, cloud-architect, cost-analyst

Targets

  • Microsoft.Web/sites
  • Microsoft.App/containerApps
  • Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
  • Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases
  • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts
  • Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/flexibleServers
  • Microsoft.Web/serverfarms
  • Microsoft.App/managedEnvironments
  • Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
  • Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers
  • Microsoft.Network/frontDoors
  • Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways
  • Microsoft.Cache/redis

WAF-COST-SKU-002

Select appropriate database SKU based on environment tier — serverless/burstable for dev, provisioned/GP for production

Severity: Required
Rationale: Database costs can exceed compute; serverless and burstable tiers eliminate idle costs in dev
Agents: terraform-agent, bicep-agent, cloud-architect, cost-analyst

Targets

  • Microsoft.Web/sites
  • Microsoft.App/containerApps
  • Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
  • Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases
  • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts
  • Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/flexibleServers
  • Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases
  • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts
  • Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/flexibleServers
  • Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers
  • Microsoft.Network/frontDoors
  • Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways
  • Microsoft.Cache/redis

WAF-COST-SKU-003

Select appropriate storage redundancy — LRS for dev/POC, GRS or ZRS for production; use tiered access (Hot/Cool/Archive)

Severity: Required
Rationale: Storage redundancy costs scale linearly; LRS is 2-3x cheaper than GRS. Access tiers reduce costs for infrequently accessed data
Agents: terraform-agent, bicep-agent, cloud-architect, cost-analyst

Targets

  • Microsoft.Web/sites
  • Microsoft.App/containerApps
  • Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
  • Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases
  • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts
  • Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/flexibleServers
  • Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts
  • Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers
  • Microsoft.Network/frontDoors
  • Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways
  • Microsoft.Cache/redis

WAF-COST-SKU-004

Select appropriate networking SKU — Basic for dev/POC, Standard for production

Severity: Required
Rationale: Networking services vary significantly in cost by tier; Basic SKUs are sufficient for development
Agents: terraform-agent, bicep-agent, cloud-architect, cost-analyst

Targets

  • Microsoft.Web/sites
  • Microsoft.App/containerApps
  • Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
  • Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases
  • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts
  • Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/flexibleServers
  • Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers
  • Microsoft.Cdn/profiles
  • Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways
  • Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers
  • Microsoft.Network/frontDoors
  • Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways
  • Microsoft.Cache/redis

WAF-COST-SKU-005

Select appropriate cache SKU — Basic C0 for dev/POC, Standard C1+ for staging, Premium for production clustering

Severity: Required
Rationale: Redis cache pricing varies 10x between tiers; Basic is sufficient for development caching scenarios
Agents: terraform-agent, bicep-agent, cloud-architect, cost-analyst

Targets

  • Microsoft.Web/sites
  • Microsoft.App/containerApps
  • Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
  • Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases
  • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts
  • Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/flexibleServers
  • Microsoft.Cache/redis
  • Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers
  • Microsoft.Network/frontDoors
  • Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworkGateways
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