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Azure software plan discount

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Azure software plans for SUSE and RedHat are reservations that apply to deployed VMs. The software plan discount is applied to the software usage of deployed VMs that match the reservation.

When you shut down a VM, the discount is automatically applied to another matching VM, if available. A software plan covers the cost of running the software on a VM. Other charges such as compute, storage, and networking are charged separately.

To buy the right plan, you need to understand your VM usage and the number of vCPUs on those VMs. Use the following sections to help identify what plan to buy, based on your usage data.

How reservation discount is applied

A reservation discount is "use-it-or-lose-it." So, if you don't have matching resources for any hour, then you lose a reservation quantity for that hour. You can't carry forward unused reserved hours.

When you shut down a resource, the reservation discount automatically applies to another matching resource in the specified scope. If no matching resources are found in the specified scope, then the reserved hours are lost.

Stopped resources are billed and continue to use reservation hours. Deallocate or delete resources or scale-in other resources to use your available reservation hours with other workloads.

Review RedHat VM usage before you buy

Get the product name from your usage data and buy the RedHat plan with the same type and size.

For example, if your usage has product Red Hat Enterprise Linux - 1-4 vCPU VM License, you should purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 1-4 vCPU VM.

Review SUSE VM usage before you buy

Get the product name from your usage data and buy the SUSE plan with the same type and size.

For example, if your usage is for product SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Priority - 2-4 vCPU VM Support, you should purchase SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Priority for 2-4 vCPU.

Screenshot that shows selecting the product to purchase.

Discount applies to different VM sizes for SUSE plans

Like Reserved VM Instances, SUSE plan purchases offer instance size flexibility. That means that your discount applies even when you deploy a VM with a different vCPU count. The discount applies to different VM sizes within the software plan.

The discount amount depends on the ratio listed in the following tables. The ratio compares the relative footprint for each meter in that group. The ratio depends on the VM vCPUs. Use the ratio value to calculate how many VM instances get the SUSE Linux plan discount.

For example, if you buy a plan for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for HPC Priority for a VM with 3 or 4 vCPUs, the ratio for that reservation is 2. The discount covers the SUSE software cost for:

  • 2 deployed VMs with 1 or 2 vCPUs,
  • 1 deployed VM with 3 or 4 vCPUs,
  • or 0.77 or about 77% of a VM with 5 or more vCPUs.

The ratio for 5 or more vCPUs is 2.6. So a reservation for SUSE with a VM with 5 or more vCPUs covers only a portion of the software cost, which is about 77%.

The ratios are based on prices. The 2.6 ratio means that 1 vCPU VM is covered when your purchase quantity of 1 has 5 or more vCPUs.

The following tables show the software plans you can buy a reservation for, their associated usage meters, and the ratios for each.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for HPC

SUSE VM MeterId Ratio Example VM size
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for HPC 1-2 vCPUs 8c94ad45-b93b-4772-aab1-ff92fcec6610 1 D2s_v3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for HPC 3-4 vCPUs 4ed70d2d-e2bb-4dcd-b6fa-42da71861a1c 1.92308 D4s_v3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for HPC 5+ vCPUs 907a85de-024f-4dd6-969c-347d47a1bdff 2.92308 D8s_v3

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications

SUSE VM MeterId Ratio Example VM size
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 1-2 vCPUs 497fe0b6-fa3c-4e3d-a66b-836097244142 1 D2s_v3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 3-4 vCPUs 847887de-68ce-4adc-8a33-7a3f4133312f 2 D4s_v3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 5+ vCPUs 18ae79cd-dfce-48c9-897b-ebd3053c6058 2.41176 D8s_v3

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

SUSE VM MeterId Ratio Example VM size
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 1-2 cores vCPUs 4b2fecfc-b110-4312-8f9d-807db1cb79ae 1 D2s_v3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 3-4 cores vCPUs 0c3ebb4c-db7d-4125-b45a-0534764d4bda 1.92308 D4s_v3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 5+ vCPUs 7b349b65-d906-42e5-833f-b2af38513468 2.30769 D8s_v3

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Next steps

To learn more about reservations, see the following articles: