Buy Microsoft Azure reservations on behalf of your customers
Appropriate roles: Admin agent | Sales agent
This article explains how to buy Azure reservations on behalf of your customers in Partner Center. It also identifies markets where Azure reservations are unavailable.
Note
This article applies only to Direct bill and indirect providers partners in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.
Customers using other types of subscriptions—such as, pay-as-you-go, individual, Microsoft Customer Agreement, or Enterprise Agreement subscriptions)—should read Save with Azure reservations instead.
Before you begin
Important
Review the following information before you buy Azure reservations on behalf of your customers.
Azure reservations aren't available in all markets. To see a list of unavailable markets, see Azure reservations—unavailable markets at the end of this article.
If you want customers to be able to buy their own Azure reservations from a prior Azure subscription you purchased for them, see Give customers permission to buy their own Azure reservations.
If your customer has signed the Microsoft Customer Agreement, you must purchase Azure reservations under the Azure plan.
Customers must already have an active Azure subscription before you can purchase reservations on their behalf
Software subscription costs (such as SQL Database or SUSE Linux software) aren't included in Azure reservation prices
Commercial pricing from Microsoft to you doesn't include taxes (unless your location is Brazil, where the commercial price to you does include taxes).
Sales agents and Help Desk agents need explicit access to the Azure subscription to:
- Buy or manage a subscription in the Azure portal on behalf of the customer.
- Make exchanges and refunds on behalf of the customer.
- File support requests on behalf of the customer.
If you're an indirect provider and you buy Azure reservations through the Azure portal, the Partner of Record (indirect reseller) is inherited from the Azure CSP subscription that you select.
The Partner of Record for Azure reservations can't be changed post-purchase. You can cancel the existing reservation and purchase a new one with the new Partner of Record.
If a customer wants to transfer an Azure subscription from Direct or EA to CSP, reservations don't get transferred.
Purchase Azure reservations
Note
If you want customers to be able to buy their own Azure reservations from a prior Azure subscription you purchased for them, see Give customers permission to buy their own Azure reservations.
To buy Microsoft Azure reservations on behalf of your customers in Partner Center, use the following steps:
Sign in to Partner Center and select Customers.
On the Customers page, find the customer who wants to purchase Azure reservations and then select the down arrow to expand that customer's row.
Select Add products and then select Azure.
a. Choose the customer's market segment from the Segment list.
b. Choose Reservations from the product Type list.
c. Choose the type of reservation the customer wants from the Reservations type list.
Choose the customer's subscription you want to add Azure reservations to from the Customer subscription list.
Important
Azure reservations must be associated with an active Azure subscription. If the customer doesn't already have an active Azure subscription, you can select Azure to add one.
Use the filters to find Azure reservations on virtual machines that meet your customer's requirements.
After you find the reservations you want to buy, enter the number of reserved instances the customer needs in Quantity and then select Add to cart.
Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you've added all the necessary items to the order and then select Review to verify that your order is correct.
On the Review your orders page, you can:
Verify or change the reserved instances quantity.
Select the reservation's scope. The reservation's scope can cover one subscription or multiple subscriptions (shared scope).
- If you scope the reservation to a single subscription, the reservation discount is applied to that subscription only.
- If you select Shared, the reservation discount is applied to any subscriptions within the customer's billing context.
Note
If you opt to limit the reservation's scope to a single Azure subscription, you might need to increase the subscription's vCPU quota. To increase the subscription's vCPU quota, create a support request in the Azure portal by following the instructions at Increase regional vCPU quotas.
Note
If your customer is under the Azure plan, Scope is set to Shared at time of purchase. That scope can be changed later.
If you're a provider partner, select the reseller that you want to associate with the product.
If your Azure reservation does support the Billing plan option, you can select monthly billing from the dropdown menu.
If your Azure reservation doesn't support the Billing plan option, billing frequency defaults to one-time billing.
Select Buy to purchase the order.
The details of your order, including your order number, are displayed on the Confirm page.
Select Done to go to your Order history page.
To manage the customer's reservation in the Azure portal, find the customer on your Customers page and then select the down arrow to expand the customer's row. Select Microsoft Azure Management Portal to open the customer's record in the Azure portal.
Azure reservations—unavailable markets
Important
Azure reservations are not available in the following markets:
Unavailable markets (in alphabetical order)
| A to Gi | Gr to Pal | Pap to Z |
|---|---|---|
| Åland Islands | Greenland | Papua New Guinea |
| American Samoa | Grenada | Pitcairn Islands |
| Andorra | Guadeloupe | Reunion |
| Anguilla | Guam | Saba |
| Antarctica | Guernsey | Saint Barthélemy |
| Antigua and Barbuda | Guinea | Saint Lucia |
| Aruba | Guinea-Bissau | Saint Martin |
| Azerbaijan | Guyana | Saint Pierre and Miquelon |
| Benin | Haiti | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines |
| Bhutan | Heard Island and McDonald Islands | Samoa |
| Bonaire | Isle of Man | San Marino |
| Bouvet Island | Jan Mayen | São Tomé and Príncipe |
| British Indian Ocean Territory | Jersey | Seychelles |
| British Virgin Islands | Kiribati | Sierra Leone |
| Burkina Faso | Kosovo | Sint Eustatius |
| Burundi | Laos | Sint Maarten |
| Cambodia | Lesotho | Solomon Islands |
| Central African Republic | Liberia | Somalia |
| Chad | Madagascar | South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands |
| China | Malawi | South Sudan |
| Christmas Island | Maldives | St Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha |
| Cocos (Keeling) Islands | Mali | Suriname |
| Comoros | Marshall Islands | Svalbard |
| Congo | Martinique | Swaziland |
| Congo (DRC) | Mauritania | Timor-Leste |
| Cook Islands | Mayotte | Togo |
| Djibouti | Micronesia | Tokelau |
| Dominica | Montserrat | Tonga |
| Equatorial Guinea | Mozambique | Turks and Caicos Islands |
| Eritrea | Myanmar | Tuvalu |
| Falkland Islands | Nauru | U.S. Outlying Islands |
| French Guiana | New Caledonia | Vanuatu |
| French Polynesia | Niger | Vatican City |
| French Southern Territories | Niue | Wallis and Futuna |
| Gabon | Norfolk Island | Yemen |
| Gambia | Northern Mariana Islands | |
| Gibraltar | Palau |