Azure Copilot is an indispensable tool for cloud administrators and engineers. Its troubleshooting, optimisation, governance and automation capabilities enable users to maximise operational efficiency. Here’s what it can help you do.
Azure Copilot is an advanced tool designed to enhance the management and optimisation of cloud services. By leveraging its capabilities, users can troubleshoot issues, review and optimise services, improve cloud governance, develop script templates, and gain insights into cloud subscription details.
Troubleshooting cloud services
Troubleshooting with Azure Copilot is seamless due to its advanced diagnostic capabilities. It aids in identifying and resolving issues quickly, ensuring minimal downtime and enhanced performance.
Here’s an example. If you are facing latency issues with a web application hosted on Azure, you can use Azure Copilot to pinpoint the root cause of the problem by giving the prompt: “Diagnose latency issues for the web application in subscription XYZ using Azure Copilot.”
Azure Copilot analyses the application, inspects network configurations, and reviews recent deployment changes. It identifies a misconfigured load balancer as the source of the latency, offering recommendations to rectify the issue.
Figure 1 demonstrates Azure Copilot’s diagnostic output, pinpointing network misconfigurations and suggesting optimal settings.
Review and optimisation of cloud services
Optimising cloud services is pivotal for ensuring cost-efficiency and performance. Azure Copilot offers insights and recommendations, facilitating informed decision-making.
Consider a scenario where your cloud storage costs are unexpectedly high. You can use Azure Copilot to review storage utilisation and optimise costs. The prompt is: “Analyse and optimise storage usage in subscription ABC with Azure Copilot.”
Azure Copilot reviews storage metrics, identifies underutilised resources, and recommends actions such as tier adjustments or data archiving to reduce costs.
Figure 2 illustrates Azure Copilot’s cost-saving recommendations, highlighting underutilised resources and suggesting alternative storage options.
Improving cloud governance
Effective cloud governance ensures compliance, security, and efficient resource management. Azure Copilot assists in establishing and enforcing governance policies.
As an example, to enhance governance, you may want to enforce tagging policies across resources. Azure Copilot can help automate this process. You can use the prompt: “Implement and enforce tagging policies for resources in subscription DEF using Azure Copilot.”
Azure Copilot automates the tagging process, ensuring all resources adhere to the defined policies, thereby improving visibility and management.
Figure 3 showcases Azure Copilot’s enforcement of tagging policies, ensuring consistent resource categorisation and governance.
Developing script templates for cloud operations
Script automation enhances operational efficiency. Azure Copilot aids in developing and deploying script templates tailored to specific cloud operations.
Suppose you need a script to automate backup operations for databases. Azure Copilot can help generate the necessary script template. You can give the prompt: “Create a script template for automating database backups in subscription GHI using Azure Copilot.”
Azure Copilot generates a PowerShell script template that automates the backup process, including scheduling, retention policies, and notification settings.
Figure 4 displays the detailed script template generated by Azure Copilot, ready for deployment and customisation.
Understanding cloud subscription details
Gaining insights into cloud subscriptions is crucial for effective management. Azure Copilot provides detailed subscription analytics, facilitating informed decisions.
To understand usage patterns and billing details, you can utilise Azure Copilot for a comprehensive subscription analysis by giving the prompt: “Provide a detailed analysis of subscription usage and billing for subscription JKL using Azure Copilot.”
Azure Copilot offers an in-depth analysis of subscription usage, billing trends, and identifies areas for cost optimisation.
Figure 5 illustrates the subscription analysis generated by Azure Copilot, highlighting key usage metrics and cost-saving opportunities.
Azure Copilot for reviewing cloud architecture
Azure Copilot reviews a workload by reading your actual Azure environment with natural-language prompts. This is what it reads:
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Control plane context
Subscriptions, resources, RBAC, policies, tags, and telemetry accessible to your identity.
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Best-practice baselines
Azure Well-Architected Framework pillars and the Well-Architected Review assessment.
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Built-in recommendations
Azure Advisor findings are mapped to the same pillars for reliability, security, performance, and operations.
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Security posture
Defender for Cloud recommendations with Copilot summaries, delegation, and ‘Fix with Copilot’.
The end-to-end review procedure is as follows.
Prereqs
Ensure Copilot in Azure is enabled in your tenant and you have least-privilege access to the target subscriptions and resource groups.
Scope the review
In Azure Portal, open Copilot and specify scope: subscription(s) or a resource group. Ask: “List my top Advisor recommendations by pillar for subscription X.” Copilot returns the linked Advisor items.
Establish the baseline
Run or import a ‘Well-Architected Review’ for the workload. Use Copilot to summarise gaps per pillar and cross-reference Advisor items.
Security deep-dive
In Defender for Cloud, open Recommendations → Summarize with Copilot to get a plain-language risk brief. Use Generate message to delegate or Fix with Copilot to apply guided remediation or scripts. Track Secure Score impact.
Reliability review
Ask Copilot: “Show reliability risks for RG Y.” Prioritise ZRS/GZRS storage, availability zones, health probes, backup/restore, and failover patterns. Map each task to Advisor reliability items.
Performance efficiency
Query Copilot for performance recommendations and hotspots. Validate service-specific advisors (for example, Azure SQL Database performance advisors) and right-size SKUs.
Cost optimisation
Ask: “Summarise my last 30 days of cost outliers and savings opportunities.” Copilot surfaces cost-focused Advisor items and Cost Management insights for idle, over-provisioned, and orphaned resources. Optionally configure Advisor digests for ongoing alerts.
Operational excellence
Request: “List monitoring and diagnosability gaps for workload Z.” Copilot summarises missing alerts, logging, and deployment hygiene aligned to the Well-Architected pillar.
Document and track
Ask Copilot to “Summarise this review and list the next actions by the owner and pillar.” Export linked recommendations. Re-run the scope weekly to verify posture drift and secure score movement.
Azure Copilot for cloud operations
Azure Copilot transforms the way organisations approach cloud operations. By delivering personalised assistance in monitoring, cost reporting, and resource management, it empowers users to make informed decisions, enhance efficiency, and maintain control over their cloud environment.
Monitoring cloud infrastructure
Azure Copilot provides real-time visibility into the health and performance of your cloud resources. With its conversational interface, users can easily enquire about the status of virtual machines, network traffic, or application performance. Instead of sifting through dashboards, simply ask Copilot for updates or specific metrics. This approach enables swift detection of anomalies, making it easier to take proactive measures and ensure optimal system reliability.
Cost reporting and optimisation
Managing expenses in the cloud is a crucial aspect of any organisation’s strategy. Azure Copilot offers tailored insights into spending patterns and resource utilisation. You can request detailed breakdowns of costs, identify the services or resources contributing most to your bill, and receive recommendations for savings opportunities. By making cost analysis a conversational process, Copilot helps stakeholders understand financial trends and empowers them to make informed budgeting decisions.
Resource management
With Azure Copilot, handling cloud assets becomes intuitive and efficient. Whether you need to provision new resources, modify configurations, or decommission unused assets, Copilot guides you through each step with clear instructions. You can perform actions such as creating databases or scaling compute instances by describing your requirements in natural language. Copilot’s ability to interpret and act on these requests ensures that resource management processes are both accessible and accurate.
By leveraging Azure Copilot’s advanced features, organisations can enhance their cloud operations, reduce costs, and ensure compliance, ultimately driving success in their cloud initiatives.
