Challenge 23: Azure Advisor & Service Health
20-30 min | Cost: Free | Domain: Management & Governance (30-35%)
Exam skills covered
- Describe the purpose of Azure Advisor
- Describe Azure Service Health
Overview
Azure provides tools to help you optimize your environment and stay informed about Azure platform status. Azure Advisor gives personalized best-practice recommendations. Azure Service Health keeps you informed about Azure platform issues, planned maintenance, and health advisories that might affect your resources.
Explore
Task 1: Explore Azure Advisor
- In Azure Portal, search for Advisor
- Click on Azure Advisor
- Explore the recommendation categories:
| Category | What it recommends |
|---|---|
| Reliability | Improve availability of your applications |
| Security | Detect threats and vulnerabilities |
| Performance | Improve speed of your applications |
| Cost | Reduce spending and optimize resources |
| Operational Excellence | Process efficiency and best practices |
- Click on each category to see specific recommendations
- Note: With a new/empty account, you may see few recommendations — that's normal!
Task 2: Understand Advisor recommendations
Advisor analyzes your resource configuration and usage and then provides:
- Actionable recommendations with specific steps
- Impact level: High, Medium, Low
- Direct links to fix the issue
- Estimated savings for cost recommendations
Example recommendations:
| Category | Example recommendation |
|---|---|
| Cost | "Right-size underutilized VMs — save $50/month" |
| Reliability | "Enable availability zones for your SQL database" |
| Security | "Enable MFA for all admin accounts" |
| Performance | "Upgrade to Premium SSD for better IOPS" |
Task 3: Explore Azure Service Health
- In Azure Portal, search for Service Health
- Explore the three components:
| Component | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Azure Status | Global Azure service status (all regions, all services) |
| Service Health | Issues affecting YOUR specific services and regions |
| Resource Health | Health of YOUR individual resources |
- Click Service issues — see current problems (if any)
- Click Planned maintenance — upcoming maintenance windows
- Click Health advisories — feature changes or deprecations
- Click Health history — past issues and RCAs (Root Cause Analysis)
Task 4: Set up Service Health alerts
- In Service Health, click Health alerts
- Click + Create service health alert
- Explore what you can configure:
- Services to monitor
- Regions to watch
- Event types (Service issue, Planned maintenance, Health advisory)
- Notification method (email, SMS, webhook)
- Click Cancel (unless you want to create a real alert)
Task 5: Azure Status page
- Visit azure.status.microsoft
- This public page shows:
- Global status of all Azure services
- Status by region
- Current incidents (if any)
- Historical uptime data
- Compare this with Service Health in the portal:
- azure.status.microsoft = broad, public view
- Service Health = personalized to YOUR resources
# View Advisor recommendations
az advisor recommendation list --query "[0:5].{Category:category, Impact:impact, Problem:shortDescription.problem}" --output table 2>/dev/null || echo "Explore Advisor in the portal"
# No CLI for Service Health — use the portal for the best experience
Key Concepts
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Azure Advisor | Personalized cloud consultant recommending best practices |
| Service Health | Personalized view of Azure service issues affecting you |
| Resource Health | Health status of your specific Azure resources |
| Azure Status | Public page showing global Azure service health |
| Health alerts | Notifications when Azure issues affect your resources |
| Planned maintenance | Advance notice of scheduled Azure maintenance |
Knowledge Check
1. Which Azure service provides personalized recommendations to improve cost, security, reliability, and performance?
2. What is the difference between Azure Service Health and the public Azure Status page (azure.status.microsoft)?
3. Azure Advisor identifies that several of your VMs are underutilized. Which recommendation category would this fall under?
4. Which Service Health component shows the health of a specific Azure resource you own?
5. How can you be notified when a planned Azure maintenance event will affect your resources?