If you're a developer working with Microsoft Azure's Visual Studio Professional subscription, you've probably noticed something frustrating: your generous £40 monthly credit seems to disappear faster than you can spin up a simple VM. Before you blame your resource-hungry applications, take a closer look at what's actually consuming your budget.
The culprit? Microsoft Defender for Cloud, silently draining your development funds with services you probably don't need in a lab environment.
The Hidden Cost of "Free" Security
Microsoft's Visual Studio Professional subscription comes with £40 monthly credit – seemingly perfect for experimenting with virtual machines, storage accounts, and testing new services. However, Azure's out-of-the-box configuration includes several "helpful" security features that are enabled by default.
The biggest offender is Microsoft Defender for Cloud, which can consume £15 or more of your monthly allowance. While Defender for Cloud is absolutely essential for production environments, it becomes an expensive luxury when you're just trying to learn, test, or develop applications.
In a development environment, Defender for Cloud often provides advice like "enable multi-factor authentication" or "patch these vulnerabilities" – recommendations that, while valid, aren't critical for temporary lab resources that you'll likely delete within days or weeks.
The Real Impact on Your Budget
Let's break down what this means for your development work:
- Before optimization: £40 credit - £15 Defender = £25 for actual development
- After optimization: Full £40 available for VMs, databases, storage, and experimentation
That extra £15 monthly can mean the difference between running a modest test environment and having the resources to properly test complex multi-service architectures.
Step-by-Step: Reclaiming Your Development Budget
Here's how to disable these budget-draining security features and redirect that money toward actual development work:
Step 1: Navigate to Security Settings
Head to the Azure portal and go directly to the Security Center environment settings:
https://portal.azure.com/#view/Microsoft_Azure_Security/SecurityMenuBlade/~/EnvironmentSettings
If you would rather have a visual then you can search for "Microsoft Defender for Cloud" then we want Management > Environment Settings:
Step 2: Select Your Subscription
From the subscription list, click on your Visual Studio Professional subscription (or whichever subscription you're using for development work).
Step 3: Access Pricing Configuration
You'll be taken to the pricing tier configuration page. This is where you can see exactly which Defender services are enabled and costing you money each month.
Step 4: Disable Expensive Components
The main culprit is usually Defender CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management), which typically costs around £5 per month per applicable resource. To disable it:
- Find the Defender CSPM option
- Toggle it to "Off"
- When prompted for a reason, select "Too expensive"
- In the comments box, add something like: "Development environment - do not want to pay for security monitoring on temporary lab resources"
- Click "Apply"
Step 5: Disable All Other Defender Services
Important: Make sure to disable ALL Defender services for your development environment. While you're on the pricing configuration page, review and turn OFF each of these components:
- Defender for Servers - Set to "Off"
- Defender for Databases - Set to "Off"
- Defender for Containers - Set to "Off"
- Defender for Storage - Set to "Off"
- Defender for Key Vault - Set to "Off"
- Defender for Resource Manager - Set to "Off"
- Defender for DNS - Set to "Off"
Each of these services adds to your monthly costs and, while valuable for production environments, they're unnecessary overhead for development and testing work. Make sure every single Defender service shows as "Off" before clicking "Apply" to save your changes.
When You Actually Need Defender
It's important to note that Microsoft Defender for Cloud isn't inherently bad – it's just misplaced in development environments. For production workloads, especially those handling real user data or business-critical applications, Defender for Cloud provides valuable security insights and compliance monitoring.
The key is understanding the difference between your development playground and your production infrastructure, and configuring each appropriately.
Conclusion
Your Visual Studio Professional subscription's £40 monthly credit should fuel your creativity and learning, not disappear into unnecessary security monitoring for temporary lab resources. By taking a few minutes to disable Defender for Cloud in your development environments, you can reclaim a significant portion of your budget and redirect it toward the resources that actually help you build and learn.