Platform and integration
VM
Virtual Machine
A Virtual Machine is a software-defined computer that runs its own operating system and applications on top of shared physical hardware, with a hypervisor allocating CPU, memory, storage, and network resources from the underlying host to each VM as though it were dedicated infrastructure.
Why VM matters in a Microsoft estate
VM matters because integrations, APIs, virtual machines, and delivery pipelines are how Microsoft estate data and automation become usable. These terms help readers understand how systems connect before they decide what to build or automate.
How VM shows up in practice
In Azure, virtual machines are the foundational compute building block underneath a large share of an organisation's cloud spend. They are also one of the most common sources of avoidable Azure cost, because VM billing is driven by the SKU size selected and the hours the VM runs, not by how much of that capacity is actually used. A VM provisioned for a peak workload that never materialises, or left running outside business hours when nothing depends on it, bills at full rate regardless. Rightsizing is the standard remediation: comparing actual CPU, memory, and disk performance data against the provisioned SKU over a meaningful observation window, then recommending a smaller SKU, a reservation, or a scheduled shutdown where the evidence supports it.
The discipline that separates a credible rightsizing recommendation from a guess is using real workload telemetry rather than acting on SKU size alone, since a VM can look oversized on paper while still carrying legitimate burst headroom that a shorter observation window would miss. Idle and orphaned VMs are the other common waste pattern: a VM left running after a project ended, a test environment nobody decommissioned, or a VM whose attached disk keeps billing after the compute resource itself was deleted. All of these show up as steady, unexplained spend that a monthly Azure bill alone rarely makes obvious, without dedicated cost visibility. VMs are also the underlying infrastructure for Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts, where the same rightsizing and idle-detection logic applies at the host pool level.
Understanding the distinction between AVD's VM-based, admin-managed model and Windows 365's simpler per-user Cloud PC model is itself a cost and operations decision. AVD gives direct control over VM sizing, image management, and scaling schedules in exchange for taking on that management overhead, while Windows 365 trades that flexibility for a flatter, more predictable per-user cost. For estates managing both traditional Azure VM workloads and Cloud PC fleets, the practical governance need is the same in both cases. It requires real usage data behind every sizing decision, a named owner for every resource so recommendations translate into action rather than sitting in a report, and a repeatable review cycle so rightsizing is a continuous discipline, rather than a one-off cleanup exercise that drifts back to waste within a few months of being done.