Auto shutdown Azure VMs

Q. Is there anything built in to Azure to automatically shutdown VMs at a certain time?

A. There are numerous solutions to automatically shutdown VMs:

• Use an Azure Automation to shutdown whatever VMs are required and create a schedule to call the automation
• Run a PowerShell script to scan for when VMs where shutdown by users (but still provisioned on the fabric and then shut them down (to stop paying) as I created at http://windowsitpro.com/azure/deprovision-vms-are-stopped-azure-after-20-minutes
• Utilize the DevTestLabs schedule resource that will shutdown VMs at certain times with a configurable notification which is configured via JSON, e.g.:

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "vmName": {
      "type": "string"
    }
  },
  "variables": {
    "policyName": "[concat('shutdown-computevm-', parameters('vmName'))]",
    "vmResourceId": "[resourceId('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines', parameters('vmName'))]"
  },
  "resources": [
    {
      "apiVersion": "2016-05-15",
      "type": "Microsoft.DevTestLab/schedules",
      "name": "[variables('policyName')]",
      "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
      "properties": {
        "status":"Enabled",
        "timeZoneId":"Central Standard Time",
        "taskType":"ComputeVmShutdownTask",
        "notificationSettings":{
          "status":"Disabled",
          "timeInMinutes":15,
          "webhookUrl":null
        },
        "targetResourceId":"[variables('vmResourceId')]",
        "dailyRecurrence":{
          "time":"1800"
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "outputs": {
  }
}