Pricing Calculator questions

Question

Hi,

My company is looking on moving our Servers to the cloud.
We are interested in the Azure VM program.

I contacted your sales and got most of the information I need, there are only 2 questions left which the sales contact said I should ask the support team about.

1. In the calculator there is a section about OS (Windows) which has 2 options, 1 is License included and the other is Azure Hybrid Benefit.
   Our company has a partnership with Microsoft and we have purchased the Action pack which includes Windows License.
   Can we use these licenses on the VMs? If so, what do I mark in that section in the Calculator?
2. In the Pricing Calculator I can see there is a pricing of $ per hour (for example 0.386$/hour).
   In a case I control the hours the server will be working, is there a minimum payment?
   For example: If I use my server 5 hours a day for 5 days a week, for the example of 0.386$/hour it will cost me 38.6$ a month.
   Does that make sense?

Thank you for the help.

Cheers,
Alon Sapozhnikov.

Answer 1

Hello, @support !

Expanding on what @SUMIT KUMAR DAS has said, here are some additional details in regards to your questions.

1. Does my license qualify for Azure Hybrid Benefit? What does license included mean in the Azure Pricing Calculator?
A full list of licenses that are eligible for the Azure Hybrid Benefit can be found on the Azure Hybrid Benefit FAQ. I can't see which licenses are included in your action pack, but it would need to include one of the licenses below:

SQL Server and Windows Server licenses with active Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licenses. These include:

• Windows Server Datacenter edition with Software Assurance.
• Windows Server Standard edition with Software Assurance.
• SQL Server Enterprise Edition core licenses with Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licenses.
• SQL Server Standard Edition core licenses with Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licenses.

If you don't have Software Assurance, it's available for purchase with new licenses at list prices or with qualifying subscription licenses.

The offer is available in all Azure regions.

If you meet the criteria for Azure Hybrid Benefit, then you would select "Azure Hybrid Benefit" in the Azure Pricing Calculator (this saves up to 85% compared to standard pay-as-you-go-rates).

When using the Azure Pricing Calculator, "License included" means that the license is included in the price that you are charged. Since Windows Server is charged per vCPU, you can see this price increase as you add more vCPUs.

2. Is there a minimum rate for VMs? Can I reduce the number of hours my VM is in use to save VM costs?
Generally speaking, there aren't set minimums and a key feature of Azure VMs are billing by the minute:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/virtual-machines/windows/#pricing

Q: If my virtual machine ran for 6 minutes and 45 seconds, how much do I get billed?
A: We charge for the number of full minutes your virtual machine is running, so you are not billed for any extra seconds. In this example you would be billed for 6 minutes.

You will save money if you are not using your VM (and have it in the deallocated state) however it's not quite as simple as $X per hour for Y hours as there are other costs associated with a VM. In the pricing calculator you will see a line for Managed Disks, storage transactions, and bandwidth costs. Your HD will need to be stored somewhere so it can be used again, even if the VM isn't in use, and there may be bandwidth charges depending on how much and what type of data you use.

By changing values in the pricing calculator you can see what you should expect and generally you will see very significant savings if you reduce the amount of time that your VM is in use.

Example 1 - 100 hours of VM use (with a set amount of storage, transactions, and bandwidth) - check the Azure Pricing Calculator for current rates

Example 2 - 500 hours of VM use (with a set amount of storage, transactions, and bandwidth) - check the Azure Pricing Calculator for current rates

I hope this helps!

Additional Reading:

• Azure Hybrid Benefit product page
• Azure Hybrid Benefit FAQ
• Documentation: Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server
• Documentation: Concepts - Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server
• Windows Server Licensing

Answer 2

Hi Alon

To your 1st question. My understanding is the Microsoft Action Pack includes Product licenses (keys for On-Premises, tokens for Cloud Services subscriptions), and the Action Pack does not include Software Assurance for the products included in the Action Pack.

And a prerequisite of qualifying for Azure Hybrid Benefit is that you own a license for the Product (e.g. Windows Server 2016 Std), and you have active Software Assurance for that Product.

Based on this, Products in the Action Pack don't qualify.

You will need to select 'License included' for OS (Windows).

That's my understanding, hope that helps.