Plan Ahead for the Retirement of License-Included Azure VMware Solution

Microsoft has announced that the license-included Azure VMware Solution service will retire on August 30, 2027 following changes to VMware licensing.

Customers must plan migration to portable bring-your-own VMware Cloud Foundation licenses. The change makes licensing, budget, and contract planning important considerations for affected environments.

Starting planning early can help teams account for the future licensing model in their migration and financial plans. It also gives organizations time to review how the change affects their Azure VMware Solution costs and contracts.

Microsoft Shares a FinOps Approach for More Measurable AI Returns

Microsoft’s guidance on agent optimization outlines a first-party FinOps approach using Microsoft Foundry.

The approach includes model routing, prompt and semantic caching, fine-tuning, workflow optimization, token limits, cost reporting, and Azure API Management quotas. It also emphasizes attributing costs by model, agent, and workflow.

The guidance recommends matching requests to the least-cost model that meets quality requirements. For teams managing AI budgets, these controls can connect usage decisions with cost reporting and make agent spending easier to understand.

Azure Monitor Adds General Availability Control Plane Metrics for AKS

Azure Monitor Managed Prometheus now generally supports metrics collection for key Azure Kubernetes Service control plane components.

The additional observability can help teams identify inefficient cluster behavior, capacity issues, and scaling problems. These issues can contribute to unnecessary Kubernetes costs when resources don’t match workload demand.

With more control plane metrics available, teams can investigate cluster behavior in greater detail and use that information when reviewing capacity and scaling efficiency.

Resize Shared Azure Disks Live Without Application Disruption

Azure has made live storage expansion generally available for shared Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disks without application disruption.

The capability lets teams right-size storage incrementally instead of provisioning more capacity than they immediately need. It can also reduce the operational effort involved when storage requirements change.

For cost management, incremental expansion can help avoid premature overprovisioning. Teams can increase capacity as needed while keeping applications running during the change.