Visual Studio benefits: Transfer of Azure subscription ($150/month) to M365 developer tenant
Hi,
I have received a Visual Studio subscription (Visual Studio Enterprise) from my company. The subscription includes several benefits, in particular:
- Monthly Azure Credits (150$/month) in the form of a subscription. The subscription is transferable to any Azure tenant/directory by the owner of the subscription (me).
- Microsoft 365 Developer Subscription (E5): This includes an M365 tenant with 25 E5 licenses and dummy users + data. This also includes an Azure tenant (Azure AD) where the users are managed.
I want to use both benefits at the same time. At the moment I have created a personal Azure tenant (directory) and transferred my subscription (Monthly Azure Credits) to it. The tenant created in this way, let us call it Tenant A, has the Azure AD Free license. For now, I use Tenant A to create resources like VMs, App Services, etc.
I also activated M365 Developer Subscription and got another Azure tenant, let us call it Tenant B, which has Azure AD Premium P2 license. With the activation of the M365 Developer Subscription, I got a new administrative account that is included in Tenant B's Azure AD.
Now I have two tenants, but I only need / want one. So I want to use only Tenant B since it already has dummy users with E5 licenses and is Azure AD Premium P2. I also invited my company account (owner of the subscription) to Tenant B as an external user and gave it the Global Administrator role. Now I could transfer the Azure subscription from Tenant A to Tenant B.
As far as I know, it is only possible to transfer the azure subscription as long as I have access to the tenant it is currently assigned to. So I have the following questions:
- In general, is it a good idea to transfer the Azure subscription to Tenant B, where I'm "only" an external user, but own the tenant via another account? Are there any disadvantages/risks?
- How long does the M365 tenant last? As long as my Visual Studio subscription is valid?
- What happens to my Azure subscription if I lose access to Tenant B (e.g. got deleted somehow)? Can I recover it somehow even if I can't access it anymore?
I tried to find answers to these questions myself and came across the following information.
For 2. I read on the M365 Developer Program page that a Free developer instant sandbox is valid for 90 days and renewable. Is this also the case if I have access to it via the Visual Studio benefit?
For 3. I haven't found a clear answer, just some forum posts that don't quite fit my situation.
My biggest concern is losing access to my Azure subscription permanently or for an extended period of time (e.g. annual visual studio license renewal).