First time VM user pricing help for remote workstation setup

Question

Needing a more powerful workstation the fastest option is to fire up a NVv4 GPU powered compute instance.

Problem is I struggle to understand what kind of costs I will face in using it.

NV16as v4 16core 56 GiBRAM 352 GiB temporary storage 1/2 MI25 (8GB VRAM) GPU costs €0,9825/h for hourly usage on West EU area.

Wondering if I need to pay something else for these other topics

1) I will need to use Windows 10 Pro due the kind of sw will use, and as far I understand I need "an eligible Windows 10 licence with multi-tenant hosting rights". I have a Microsoft 365 Business Plus account

2) will connect remotelly using NoMachine since this is the only remote dektop sw I use, good enough for interactive graphics

3) will install an Autodesk sw needing about 4GB of data to download and install

4) will run compute CPU-heavy simulation enduring 6h on my 6c12t machine, so I expect about 2h on a 16c machine. This time can increase substantially depending on the sim setup, so maybe will need to switch up to the 32c instance.

5) this sim run will be unattended and will generate about 1GB of image sequence every time. Didn't need fast disk on this

6) after the compute will transfer back this images on my local PC/cloud drive using FPT or equivalent, possibily automating this process

7) after this last transfer of the results will need to receive an alert so I can decide to fire up a different sim with different parameters, or shut down the machine.

8) in case I shut down the VM will need to save the image somewhere so that when I need it back I can reload it on the VM and find again my setup

Answer 1

It sounds like there are 2 core questions here. What are my options and how much will it cost?

What are my options?
When exploring your options in Azure, sales is a good resource for quickly determining which services best suit your needs (especially if BareMetal is a consideration). You can chat live with sales representatives here:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/contact-azure-sales/

I know that you mentioned that you are interested in behavior as opposed to render quality, but if the end goal is a simulation animation (perhaps one like this) then I would still give Autodesk's integration with Azure Batch a look as it may greatly reduce the overhead required for the simulations:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/massive-scale-cloud-rendering-with-autodesk-on-azure/

Going the VM route you'll want to figure out which VM type and size best fits your needs. GPU will be the N sizes and high performance compute will be the H sizes.

Windows 10 VMs require a license and this would be a good opportunity to reach out to sales to determine what fits your specific needs. Generally speaking, you can find requirements here:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/virtual-desktop/

It's also worth mentioning that Windows Server VMs might be worth a look as they include license costs and Autodesk software has been successfully run on them in the past even though they are not listed under the supported OS types.

Once you have your VM you'll want to create an image of your complete setup. I would recommend reading about Shared Image Galleries:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/shared-image-galleries

Now you'll want to start your simulations. For the output you can transfer it using FTP if you want but using Azure storage will mostly likely be the fastest and cheapest way to store your data.

Automation based on conditions of third party apps is probably a question worth asking by itself in the Azure Automation forums. You can read more about Azure Automation in the documentation:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-runbook-execution

How much will it cost?
When it comes to billing questions, there are 2 definitive resources:

Azure price calculator:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

Speak to billing directly:
In the Azure portal, you can open a billing support request by going to Help + support > New support request > Billing and then complete the wizard.

Additionally, a great tool for monitoring costs as you use your resources is the Cost analysis tool under Cost Management. I frequently use this myself to keep tabs on the costs of my resources as I use them.