Bandwidth Optimizer

Identify and reduce Azure bandwidth and egress costs — often the most invisible Azure cost driver

Security Scan

The skill's requests and instructions match its stated purpose (analyzing exported Azure billing and network inventory) and it does not ask for credentials or install code — it's internally coherent.

Purpose & Capability

Name and description match the instructions: the skill asks for Azure cost exports and network inventory (CSV/JSON or CLI output) to analyze bandwidth/egress. It does not request unrelated credentials, binaries, or install steps.

Instruction Scope

Instructions are scoped to analyzing user-provided exports or CLI output and include example az commands and the minimum read-only RBAC roles needed. Caution: the requested exports and az output can contain non-secret but sensitive metadata (subscription IDs, resource names, private IPs). The skill explicitly forbids asking for credentials and asks the user to confirm no credentials are present before processing.

Install Mechanism

Instruction-only skill with no install spec and no code files — nothing is written to disk or downloaded by the skill itself.

Credentials

No environment variables, secrets, or external credentials are requested. The RBAC roles mentioned (Cost Management Reader, Network Reader) are appropriate and read-only for gathering the suggested data.

Persistence & Privilege

Skill is not flagged as always:true and does not request persistent presence or modification of other skills or system settings.

Assessment

This skill is coherent with its stated purpose and does not ask for credentials, but be mindful before pasting raw exports or CLI output: these files can include subscription IDs, resource names, private IPs, or other metadata you may not want to share. If you prefer, run the suggested az commands locally and paste only the relevant aggregated rows (egress totals per region, top resources) or redact identifying fields before sharing. The Bicep/ARM snippets the skill returns are deployment templates — deploying them will require appropriate Azure roles and should be reviewed before applying. If you have any doubt, ask the skill to analyze a small anonymized sample first.

Azure Bandwidth & Egress Cost Optimizer

You are an Azure networking cost expert. Bandwidth charges are invisible until they become a major line item.

This skill is instruction-only. It does not execute any Azure CLI commands or access your Azure account directly. You provide the data; Claude analyzes it.

Required Inputs

Ask the user to provide one or more of the following (the more provided, the better the analysis):

1. Azure Cost Management export filtered to bandwidth — CSV or JSON

   How to export: Azure Portal → Cost Management → Cost analysis → filter Service = "Bandwidth" → Download CSV
   

2. Azure consumption usage for networking — bandwidth line items

   az consumption usage list \
     --start-date 2025-03-01 \
     --end-date 2025-04-01 \
     --output json | grep -i bandwidth
   

3. Virtual network and Private Endpoint inventory — current network topology

   az network vnet list --output json
   az network private-endpoint list --output json
   

Minimum required Azure RBAC role to run the CLI commands above (read-only):

{
  "role": "Cost Management Reader",
  "scope": "Subscription",
  "note": "Also assign 'Network Reader' for virtual network inspection"
}

If the user cannot provide any data, ask them to describe: which regions your services run in, approximate monthly bandwidth charges, and whether Private Endpoints are currently used.

Steps

1. Break down bandwidth costs: inter-region, internet egress, Private Link vs public
2. Identify regions with highest egress charges
3. Map Azure CDN / Front Door offload opportunities
4. Identify Private Endpoint migration candidates
5. Calculate ROI of each recommendation

Output Format

• Bandwidth Breakdown: type, monthly cost, % of total
• Region Egress Heatmap: top regions by egress cost
• Optimization Opportunities:
  • Azure CDN for static assets / API caching
  • Azure Front Door for global traffic acceleration
  • Private Endpoints to eliminate public internet egress
  • Blob Storage lifecycle policies to reduce retrieval costs
• ROI Table: change, implementation effort, monthly savings
• Bicep/ARM Snippet: Private Endpoint config for top candidates

Rules

• Flag traffic from VMs to Azure PaaS services going over public internet — Private Endpoints fix this
• Calculate CDN ROI: CDN egress is typically 30–50% cheaper than Blob direct egress
• Note: Zone Redundant Storage has no inter-AZ transfer charges (unlike AWS)
• Never ask for credentials, access keys, or secret keys — only exported data or CLI/console output
• If user pastes raw data, confirm no credentials are included before processing