Sched4Cloud — Azure Resource Scheduling & Cost Automation

Stop Paying for Idle Azure Resources

The Problem

Your development VMs run 24/7. Your team works 8 hours a day.

Staging databases stay online all weekend. Test environments survive long past the sprint that created them.

The waste is structural, not accidental. Non-production resources consume full compute around the clock because there is no simple way to schedule them.

Manual shutdown routines break. Runbooks drift. Scripts require maintenance. Azure provides powerful resource management — but not built-in, visual, cross-subscription scheduling with cost tracking.

The Solution

Sched4Cloud is a fully managed SaaS service that automatically starts and stops Azure resources based on business-defined schedules.

Subscribe through Microsoft Marketplace, connect your Azure subscriptions using a service principal in Microsoft Entra ID, and define schedules visually. Resources start and stop automatically.

No scripts. No runbooks. No agents. No infrastructure to manage.

Key Benefits

• Automated resource scheduling — Define business-hours schedules, holiday exceptions, and on-demand overrides without writing code
• Multi-subscription governance — One dashboard across your entire Azure footprint
• Real-time cost visibility — See savings per schedule, per subscription, per resource
• Success-based pricing — Pay 10% of actual savings. No savings, no payment.
• 30-day trial — Full access, no billing for the first 30 days
• Lean IT advantage — No scripting, patching, or infrastructure monitoring required

Why Sched4Cloud?

DIY cost control sounds simple until it isn't.

Azure Automation runbooks require scripting, testing, and maintenance. DevTest Labs scheduling only covers specific scenarios. Manual shutdown routines depend on someone remembering to run them.

Sched4Cloud replaces all of that with a visual scheduler and automated execution — across subscriptions, resource types, and time zones.

Scheduling vs. Reserved Instances: Reserved Instances reduce unit cost through long-term commitment. Scheduling reduces consumption by stopping resources when they're not needed. For non-production workloads, scheduling is often more effective — no commitment required, and savings scale with actual idle time.

Use Cases

Dev/Test Environment Scheduling
Stop development and test VMs outside business hours automatically. A VM that runs 45 hours per week instead of 168 saves roughly 70% of its compute cost.

Staging & QA Environments
Define schedules that align with sprint cycles and release windows.

Training & Demo Systems
Ensure temporary environments don't accumulate cost after sessions end. Use holiday calendars and exception rules for irregular schedules.

Multi-Subscription Cost Governance
Centralize scheduling policies across Azure subscriptions from a single dashboard.

How It Works

1. Subscribe via Microsoft Marketplace — Acquire Sched4Cloud with consolidated Microsoft billing.
2. Connect Your Azure Environment — Create a service principal in Microsoft Entra ID and authorize access. No agents, no infrastructure deployment.
3. Define Schedules Visually — Set business-hours rules, holiday exceptions, and overrides per resource or resource group.
4. Automated Execution Begins — Resources start and stop automatically based on your schedules.
5. Track Savings in Real Time — Monitor cost reduction per schedule, per subscription, per resource.

Supported Resources

• Azure Virtual Machines
• Azure App Service Plans
• Azure SQL Databases

Pricing

Sched4Cloud charges 10% of actual computed savings. No savings = no payment.

• No upfront costs
• No long-term contracts
• No minimum fees
• Cancel anytime

Example: A Standard_D4s_v3 VM running 24/7 costs approximately €140/month. Schedule it to business hours only (~45 hours/week) and the cost drops to ~€37/month. Savings: ~€103. Sched4Cloud fee: ~€10.30. Net savings: ~€92.70/month.

Start your 30-day trial — full access, no billing for the first 30 days.