Heather Robinette

MICROSOFT AZURE RESERVATIONS: VIRTUAL MACHINES What are Reserved Virtual Machine Instances? In Microsoft Azure, Reserved Virtual Machine Instances (RI’s) offer cost savings versus the traditional pay-as-you-go model for paying compute resources. Instead of paying hourly rates for usage, customers can commit to using specific VM types in selected regions for 1 or 3 years in exchange for a fixed monthly cost that can be up to 72% savings The longer the commitment, the deeper the discount, but customers still have flexibility to pay up front or monthly. Reservations can also be exchanged at any point for the remaining balance to be applied to new reservations, so customers can remain flexible in applying existing reservations to new VM technologies as they are released by Microsoft. To understand actual cost savings, customers should consider VM utilization (run-time and right size), region, and potential future growth. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER WHEN GETTING STARTED + Will VM’s run 24x7x365 or be set on schedules for auto start/stop? + If VM’s are not running 24x7, what is the average run-time of VM’s? + Do the preferred VM sizes support Reserved Instances? + Does the preferred Azure region support Reserved Instances? + Do you anticipate changes to VM sizes in the future? + Do you anticipate changing Azure Regions in the future? www.mycloudIT.com MICROSOFT AZURE RESERVATIONS: VIRTUAL MACHINES RI’s not available for: + A-series, Av2-series, or G-series VMs + Preview or Promo VMs - Any VM-series or size that is in preview or uses a promotional meter + Germany or China regions are currently excluded from Azure Reservations + Insufficient quota - A reservation that is scoped to a single subscription must have vCPU quota available in the subscription for the new RI + Capacity restrictions - In rare circumstances, Azure limits the purchase of new reservations for a subset of VM sizes, because of low capacity in a region Azure Data Center as of 01/01/2020 Cost Savings Example: 1 year Reserved Instance on a D4 v3 VM Size VM Monthly Runtime Annual Cost Savings Breakeven (months) Scenario 1 D4_v3 24 hrs X 7 days (730 hrs) $678.84 2 Scenario 2 D4_v3 18 hrs X 7 days (540 hrs) $258.36 5 Scenario 3 D4_v3 12 hrs X 7 days (365 hrs) ($162.12) N/A Scenario 1 – RI’s would make sense as there is significant cost savings and very little risk (breakeven after month 2 with 12% early termination) Scenario 2 – RI’s still provide cost savings but includes a bit more risk in that it would take 5 months to find a breakeven (with 12% early termination) Scenario 3 - Would NOT make sense with the negative cost savings since the VM runtime is less than the RI cost savings INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT MICROSOFT AZURE RESERVED VM INSTANCES? Contact MyCloudIT Today Call us at- or email- MyCloudIT 1101 Venture Ct. Carrollton, TX 75006 - www.mycloudIT.com