Is it most beneficial in terms of pricing to let Test VMs run in a dedicated DevTest subscription or a regular subscription with AHB activated?

Question

Would it be most beneficial for a CSP Azure Plan customer to have DevTest VMs in a dedicated DevTest subscription, or in a regular subscription with AHB activated? The customer has enough licenses to run both production and test workloads with AHB, so I would like to know the cheapest alternative. I also wonder if its possible for a customer on CSP Azure Plan to migrate a subscription to a DevTest subscription, or do they have to create a new subscription for Test workloads?

Answer 1

@Charlotte-8191 , Creating a DevTest lab is free, but the charges incur for used storage (VHF files), OS disk of the VM’s created as part of lab, General VM pricing based on their size. Having said that you have flexibility to utilize cost saving features like,

1. VM auto shutdown and auto start
2. VM expiry date setting
3. Monitor Costs
   For example, shutting down a VM will not stop costs that incur for VHD disk. In that case, you can use custom PS scripts to auto delete/auto creation of the VM in the specified time interval which will eventually be a cost-effective solution when you have more VM’s launched.

Whereas AHB is applied to Windows servers, Linux, Red hat and SQL servers. But There is limitation of at least 8 cores in your license to enable AHB.
![181333-image.png][1]

Conclusion: For customers with Software Assurance, Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server allows you to use your on-premises Windows Server licenses and run Windows virtual machines on Azure at a reduced cost. Using Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server with any VMs running Windows Server OS are now supported in all regions, including VMs with additional software such as SQL Server or third-party marketplace software. Whereas, deploying VM's in DevTest Labs incurs the cost on VM's as per general policy. So, if you have existing windows server subscription then you can save more on compute cost using this AHB feature in Azure.

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[1]: /api/attachments/181333-image.png?platform=QnA [4]: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/pricing/dev-test/#devtest