User Guide
Recommendations
Optimization engines scan your cloud resources and suggest concrete savings opportunities.
How it works#
Click Generate to scan all subscriptions (or filtered scope) for optimization opportunities. CCO runs 4 engines per cloud provider:
💤
Idle resources
VMs with low CPU/network, unattached disks, unused public IPs, idle load balancers, empty storage accounts.
📐
Right-sizing
Over-provisioned VMs, databases, and managed services based on CPU/memory utilization analysis.
📋
Reserved / committed capacity
Savings plans (AWS), reserved instances (Azure), committed use discounts (GCP) based on consistent usage patterns.
⚙️
Kubernetes
Idle namespaces, over-provisioned node pools, and spot/preemptible VM opportunities for container workloads.
The recommendations page#
The page layout combines scope selection, filtering, savings metrics, and the recommendation list:
- ✓Scope: multi-subscription selector filters all sections
- ✓Filters: category, severity, period — all propagate everywhere
- ✓Stat cards: Potential Savings (blue) + Realized Savings (cyan)
- ✓Progress bar: % of addressable savings captured
- ✓Savings Trend chart: stacked bars (unrealized + cumulative realized)
- ✓Recommendation cards: dismiss or resolve with one click
- ✓Savings History: collapsible list of resolved savings records
Resolving recommendations#
When you've acted on a recommendation (e.g., resized a VM, deleted an idle disk), click Resolve on its card. This:
- Creates a permanent SavingsRecord with the monthly/annual savings
- Removes the recommendation from the active list
- Adds the savings to your "Realized" total and trend chart
Tip
Savings records survive recommendation regeneration. When you click Generate again, previously resolved savings remain in your history — they're never lost.
Generate behavior#
When you click Generate:
- ✓All existing recommendations for the filtered subscriptions are cleared
- ✓4 engines run per cloud provider per subscription
- ✓New recommendations appear within ~20 seconds
- ✓'NEW' badges highlight recommendations created after the generate timestamp
- ✓The page auto-polls for new results during generation
Note
Generating clears all active recommendations for the scope before regenerating. This prevents duplicates but means dismissed recommendations reappear unless the underlying issue was resolved.
Reports integration#
Recommendations data appears in Full Reports (PDF/Excel) under the "Savings & Recommendations" section — including active recommendations, resolved savings, and a by-category pivot table. You can also generate standalone Savings reports from the Reports page.