After considerable interest from our previous post announcing the availability of Azure reserved instances, several customers have inquired as to the benefit of a reservered instance over a pay-as-you-go VM. Microsoft has the following to say (copied verbatim from their documentation):
Azure Reserved VM Instances offer customers simplicity and flexibility in the following ways:
- One or three-year reservation terms
- Easy to get started; set up virtual machines in seconds
- Cancel or exchange reserved instances at any time for adjusted refund
- Manage reserved instances usage at the organizational or individual department level
The availability of Azure Reserved VM Instances will appeal to your customers in the following ways:
- Reserved instances can offer significant savings over pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pricing.
- Better budgeting and forecasting with upfront payment for one-year or three-year terms.
- Prioritized computing capacity in the Azure region closest to their offices.
- Azure reservations provide the foundation for end to end infrastructure solutions when combined with software like Microsoft Windows Server and Azure SQL Database (coming soon to your Partner Dashboard).
More information can be found at this link.