Identifying Underutilized Azure Virtual Machines

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The correct blade to use for identifying underutilized virtual machines that can have their service tier changed to a less expensive offering is the Advisor blade.

The Azure Advisor service analyzes usage and configuration data for resources deployed in Azure and provides recommendations to help optimize resources for cost, security, performance, and reliability.

To identify underutilized virtual machines, you can use the Advisor's "Right-size virtual machines" recommendation. This recommendation analyzes the usage and performance data of your virtual machines and suggests a new VM size that better matches the workload requirements while optimizing cost.

To access the Advisor blade, you can follow these steps:

1. Go to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com/).
2. Select the subscription where your virtual machines are deployed.
3. Click on the "Advisor" service in the left-hand menu.
4. In the Advisor blade, select the "Cost" category.
5. Find the "Right-size virtual machines" recommendation and click on it.
6. Review the list of virtual machines that are recommended for resizing.

Once you have identified the underutilized virtual machines, you can change their service tier to a less expensive offering using the Azure portal or Azure PowerShell. This will help reduce your Azure costs while maintaining performance and reliability.