Understanding Azure VM Cost and How to Save on Your Bill

Azure VM cost can be a significant expense for businesses and individuals alike. The cost of an Azure VM is determined by the number of virtual cores, memory, and storage used.

To give you a better idea, a standard Azure VM with 2 virtual cores, 4 GB of memory, and 30 GB of storage costs around $0.125 per hour. This may not seem like a lot, but it can add up quickly.

The cost of an Azure VM can also vary depending on the region and availability zone you choose. For example, using a VM in the West US 2 region can be more expensive than using one in the East US 2 region.

You can save money on your Azure VM bill by choosing a smaller VM size or by using reserved instances. Reserved instances can provide up to 72% savings compared to pay-as-you-go pricing.

Azure VM pricing is determined per second of usage, making it a flexible option for those who need to adjust their compute capacity quickly. You can expect to pay for each second a VM resource is active.

There are several other ways to pay for a VM, including reserved instances, the Azure free tier, and spot VMs. You can save money by committing to a virtual machine for a long time with reserved instances.

Certain VMs can be used for free for a year under the Azure free tier, making it a great option for those who only need a VM for a short period. However, costs are generally higher for the pay-as-you-go model compared to the other pricing models.

Azure offers a free cloud cost calculator to help you estimate your expected monthly costs for using any combination of Azure products. This can save you valuable time and help you make informed decisions about your VM pricing.

You can also compare Azure VM prices with those of other providers using the Holori cloud calculator, which provides ranges for vCPUs, GPU, Memory, Price, Disk, and location. This can help you find the best VM instances for your needs and budget.

Purchasing Azure's unused excess capacity at a steep discount is possible with spot instances, making it a cost-effective option for those who need a VM for a short period. However, this option may not be suitable for those who need a VM for a long time.

Azure VM instance types can be overwhelming, but understanding the different options can help you make informed decisions about your workload.

There are many different types of Azure virtual machines, all designed to meet specific needs. Azure VMs come in various sizes for virtual CPUs, storage, and memory.

Choosing the right machine type is crucial, as it can significantly impact your workload's performance and cost. With so many options available, it's essential to consider your workload's requirements and choose the right instance type accordingly.

Storage-optimized VM sizes are perfect for Big Data, SQL, and NoSQL databases, offering high disk throughput and IO. The L8as – L80as v3 series and L8s – L80s v3 series are popular storage-optimized Azure virtual machine series.

Microsoft Azure offers a wide range of virtual machine instance types to suit various workloads.

Azure Virtual Machines come in different sizes for virtual CPUs, storage, and memory. This variety can make it challenging to choose the right machine type for your workload.

There are many different types of Azure virtual machines, each designed to meet specific needs. You can choose from various options to match your workload's requirements.

Compute-optimized Azure VM sizes have very high CPU-to-memory ratios, making them perfect for batch processing, network appliances, application servers, and web servers with low to moderate traffic.

Fsv2 is an example of a Compute-optimized Azure instance type.

B-series Azure VMs provide a low-cost option for workloads that typically run at a low to moderate baseline CPU utilization, but sometimes need to burst to significantly higher CPU utilization when the demand rises.

Compute Optimized instance types are perfect for workloads that require high CPU-to-memory ratios. They are ideal for batch processing, network appliances, application servers, and web servers with low to moderate traffic.

Compute-optimized Azure VM sizes have very high CPU-to-memory ratios, making them suitable for workloads that require intense processing power. Fsv2 is a Compute-optimized Azure instance type.

Here are some key characteristics of Compute Optimized instance types:

These instance types are designed to provide high performance and scalability, making them a great choice for workloads that require intense processing power.

Memory Optimized virtual machines offer a high memory-to-processor ratio, making them ideal for resource-intensive workloads.

These VMs are perfect for relational database servers, where they can handle large amounts of data with ease.

They're also great for medium-sized to large caches and memory analytics, where the high memory-to-processor ratio gives them a significant performance boost.

Some examples of Memory Optimized VM series include Esv3, Ev3, M, GS, G, DSv2, DS, Dv2, and D.

These series are specifically designed to provide maximum memory capacity, allowing you to run demanding applications with confidence.

Azure offers a free credit trial, providing $200 in Azure credits for the first 30 days, and a limited number of additional free services for the following 12 months. You can create services in any region that supports Azure and create multiple instances as long as the total stays within the allowed ranges.

Every month for a year, you can get 750 hours for B1s burstable virtual machines, which provide a low-cost option for workloads that typically run at a low to moderate baseline CPU utilization. B-series are economical virtual machines that can burst to significantly higher CPU utilization when the demand rises.

To estimate the cost of your project and save on your Azure cloud bill, you can use Holori Azure diagramming tool. This tool allows you to forecast the cost for storage, network, and additional services, not just Azure VMs.

Here are some key cost-saving options to consider:

Azure offers a free credit trial, providing $200 in Azure credits for the first 30 days. This allows you to try out various services without any upfront costs.

You can create services in any region that supports Azure, and multiple instances can be created as long as the total stays within the allowed ranges. This flexibility makes it easy to experiment with different configurations.

Every month for a year, you can get 750 hours for B1s burstable virtual machines. This is a significant amount of time, perfect for testing and development purposes.

You can also use Holori to estimate the cost of your project and save on your Azure cloud bill. This tool helps you forecast the cost for storage, network, and additional services, giving you a more accurate picture of your expenses.

Here are some key facts about Azure's free usage:

By taking advantage of these free usage options, you can save money and get started with Azure without any upfront costs.

You can save on your Azure cloud bill by using Holori, a diagramming tool that estimates the cost of your project. It's not just limited to comparing Azure VM prices, but also forecasts the cost for storage, network, and additional services.

Holori is a powerful tool that can help you identify areas where you can cut costs and optimize your Azure spending. By using it, you can get a more accurate picture of your cloud expenses and make informed decisions about your cloud budget.

One of the key benefits of Holori is that it allows you to estimate the cost of your project before you even start spending money. This can help you avoid costly surprises down the line and ensure that you're always in control of your cloud expenses.

Here are some of the key features of Holori:

By using Holori, you can save money on your Azure cloud bill and get more value out of your cloud investment.

Reserved instances can save you money, but only if you're certain you'll need them. A one-year plan saves you 40%, while a three-year plan saves you 60%. This means you can pay upfront for a predefined length of VM runtime period, usually 1 year or 3 years.

Your application should use VMs consistently and uninterruptedly, and you might need a reserved compute capacity. This is especially true for line-of-business applications with predictable capacity requirements.

You can cancel a reserved instance through the Azure portal and get credit for any unused time, but be aware that Azure typically takes a cancellation fee out of the refund.

Azure VM discount can lower your Azure bill by taking advantage of discount promotions offered by Azure. This can be combined with selecting the appropriate VM instance type and pricing model for your workloads.

Reservations can significantly reduce your Azure IaaS virtual machine, SQL database compute, Azure Cosmos DB, or other resource costs up to 72% on pay-as-you-go prices. Pre-paying for one-year or three-years of virtual machines allows you to get a discount on the resources you use.

Here are some key points to consider when using reserved instances:

Azure Advisor is a personalized cloud consultant that helps you optimize your Azure deployments by analyzing your resource configuration and usage data.

It recommends solutions to improve performance, high availability, security, and cost-effectiveness, such as right-sizing or shutting down underutilized virtual machines.

Azure Advisor also suggests buying virtual machines reserved instances to save money over pay-as-you-go costs.

To further optimize your Azure cloud bill, you can use Holori's Azure diagramming tool, which estimates the cost of your project and forecasts costs for storage, network, and additional services.

By using Holori, you can save on Azure VMs and other resources.

To get the best value at any stage of your cloud journey, you can take advantage of free trials, consumption-based pricing models, and commitment-based offers like Azure reservations and Azure savings plans for compute.

Here are some steps to follow:

Selecting the right size for your virtual machine disks can be a challenge, but choosing smaller ones can help you save money, especially on Azure managed disks.

You can use the pricing calculator to estimate your expected monthly costs for using any combination of Azure products.

Azure VM pricing promotions and discounts can significantly lower your Azure bill. You can take advantage of discount promotions offered by Azure in addition to selecting the appropriate VM instance type and pricing model for your workloads.

Azure offers discounts of up to 57% for virtual machines used for typical web app development and testing environments that run SQL databases and App Services.

To save money, consider selecting smaller virtual machine disks, especially for Azure managed disks. This can be a cost-effective option, especially for storage needs that don't require a lot of space.

Azure Dev/Test pricing provides savings of up to 55% off License Included prices, available for active Visual Studio subscribers running development and testing workloads.

New virtual machine sizes and promotions are regularly released by Azure, offering performance boosts, new features, and lower prices. Be sure to check for these updates to take advantage of the latest offers.

The H series and NC series promos are no longer available, but promo virtual machines already deployed will continue to run until their associated decommission dates.

Azure VM pricing can vary significantly depending on the region you choose, with price differences of up to 80% between the most and least expensive regions.

This is because operational costs and other factors in the specific region can affect Azure resource prices. You can find a list of services and products available by region on the Azure website.

Deploying your virtual machines in the cheapest available regions can help reduce costs, but it's essential to consider the need for proximity to your users and data when making this decision.

The region you choose for your Azure Virtual Machine (VM) can make a huge difference in your costs.

Microsoft Azure offers over 54 regions worldwide, more than any other cloud provider.

You can save a lot of money by deploying your VMs in the cheapest available regions.

For example, using the Holori Azure pricing calculator, we discovered price differences of up to 80% between the most and least expensive regions.

The cost of an Azure VM e104iv5-standard can vary greatly depending on the region, with a price difference of 80% between the USA Virginia region and Brazil São Paulo region.

In the USA Virginia region, the same VM costs $7.207 USD per hour, while in Brazil São Paulo region it costs $14.946 USD per hour.

Not all Azure services are available in all regions, and prices can depend on operational costs and other factors in the specific region.

You can find a list of services and products available by region on the Microsoft Azure website.

The Holori cloud cost calculator can help you find the cheapest region for your VMs in just 15 seconds.

Azure VMs come with a free dynamic virtual IP (VIP) address. This is automatically assigned to every Azure Cloud service containing one or more virtual machines.

You can also get a dynamic public IP address (PIP) for an additional charge, which is assigned to a virtual machine for direct access. This can be useful if you need to access your virtual machine directly from the internet.

Reserved IP addresses are another option, which can be reserved and used as a VIP address. This can be useful if you need a consistent IP address for your virtual machine.

Load-balanced IP addresses are available for an additional charge, which can be assigned to an Azure Cloud Service containing one or more virtual machines. This can be useful if you need to distribute traffic across multiple virtual machines.

Here are the available IP address options: