Quick Wins: 5 AVD Cost Savings You Can Do Today
Not every optimisation requires a project. Here are five quick wins you can implement today to start saving on AVD costs.
1. Enable Start VM on Connect
Time required: 2 minutes
Go to your host pool properties and enable Start VM on Connect. This one toggle lets you scale more aggressively without risking user access.
2. Check Your Idle Session Timeout
Time required: 5 minutes
Are disconnected sessions lingering for hours? Check your session limits:
- Disconnect idle session: Consider 30-60 minutes
- Log off disconnected session: Consider 2-4 hours
Shorter timeouts free up host capacity faster.
3. Review Your VM Sizes
Time required: 15 minutes
Open Azure Monitor and check CPU/memory utilisation on your session hosts. If you’re consistently under 40% utilisation, you might be over-specified.
You don’t need to change anything today — just identify if there’s an opportunity.
4. Turn Off Dev/Test Pools After Hours
Time required: 10 minutes
Non-production host pools often run 24/7 by accident. Set a simple schedule to shut them down at 6pm and start them at 8am.
Even basic Azure Automation can handle this.
5. Check Weekend Capacity
Time required: 10 minutes
Look at your session counts from last weekend. Then look at how many hosts were running.
If you had 5 users and 50 hosts, you’ve found a savings opportunity.
What’s Next?
These quick wins get you started. For sustained savings, consider:
- Implementing proper scaling policies
- Adding holiday awareness
- Using intelligent tools like The Smart Scaler
But don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Start with today’s quick wins.
Want to automate these optimisations? The Smart Scaler handles scaling, scheduling, and holiday awareness automatically.