I run my own uk based hosting and web design company.
We have about 10 physical servers in a DC in the UK and host about 300 or so web sites, email servers and web applications. They are all on a windows server platform with a few linux VM's.
I now have a Windows Azure account, I have set up a medium windows 2008 server within my azure account and want to start using it to maybe host and migrate some of my web sites and services onto my azure account and new server. With the view that maybe I could move ALL my services over and get rid of the need for any of my physical servers in the DC.
My question that I am still really struggling with how much this will really cost me on an ongoing basis.
The billing area, doesnt really tell me much as it simply shows my bill as £0.00. It shows my usage but I am really struggling to compare the resources I am currently using compared to how its billed in azure? It doesnt even show me what it would have cost me if I werent ona trial.
I dont want to move web hosted sites over if its going to cost me more than hosting in my current DC.
I was thinking of moving many sites onto the new server i have set up as its a better spec than a few of my current servers, so would see a big benefit, I even considered setting up a much larger Server in my Azure account but again unsure as to the real cost of that box its hard to compare.
Do I simply need to look at the calculator and select the number of servers i wil deploy, select how much storage I need and bandwidth? Or do I need to look at the items in the billing area as well - such as:
Compute units,Storage Transactions,Data Transfer Out,Data Transfer In
When I set up the server it didnt ask me for how much storage I wanted it just set it up with about 150GB avaialble in the actual server.
Any advice as I really see this as something i want to use over the next 12 months, but not if once i have finally migrated stuff its going to cost me more than my normal hosting and i have to move stuff all back at the end of the 12 months.
Cheers
Because you're using Windows Azure Virtual Machines, you should first use the virtual machine pricing calculator. This calculator only displays the costs that are relevant for your scenario except for the storage transaction cost. Here is a breakdown of the costs you'll have to consider:
Virtual Machines
The Virtual Machine cost appears on the bill as compute units. Throughout the Windows Azure Virtual Machine preview, the cost per core per hour is $0.08. Once VMs reach general availability, the cost will be $0.115 per core per hour for Windows VMs and $0.085 for Linux VMs. Using the calculator, you can see that a medium instance uses two cores and will therefore be billed at $0.16 per hour during the preview period. You will have to use your best judgement to determine how many virtual machines you'll need and how large they should be.
Storage
You will have to pay for the data actually used within your VHDs. Let's assume you have one virtual machine with one VHD attached. If the size of the VHD 200GB, but only 100GB is used, you will have to pay for 100GB per month.
Bandwidth
Microsoft now only charges for egress data transfers (data going out of the data center). With this pricing change, the Data Transfer In section of the billing area will always be 0.00. Hopefully, you already have a good idea about your current outbound data usage. If so, you can calculate your bandwidth cost by simply moving the bandwidth slider to the correct spot.
Storage Transactions
If you scroll down to the Transactions section of this blog post, you'll see how storage transactions are counted. Basically, you count one transaction per write operation and possibly one transaction per read operation depending if the data is cached or not. The cost of storage transactions are negligible because you only have to pay one cent per 100,000 transactions. That's why storage transactions are left out of the calculator.
HTH
To answer such question in an input box has limitation to express in details. The cost calculator is there to give you an estimate of upper limit about what the cost will be if your usage are under selected limit. Based on my personal experiences if you choose higher limits of usage and keep the usages within your forecast limits, there will be no hidden charges. But the reality could be far different because you may not estimate the usages correctly at first and this could change the cost later.
For moving a traditional web hosting solution to Windows Azure, latest release of Windows Azure Virtual Machine is best fit as this requires minimum migration complexity. So the VM size you will choose will have fixed resources (compute, local storage, network bandwidth, disk I/O etc) and the cost will be fixed as long as you are under limit so there will not be unseen charges.
Windows Azure Storage is pay as you go (ranges ~$0.012/GB depend on usage limit) and there is no limit. When moving from traditions web hosting to Cloud environment, due to application architecture design, I have seen less Cloud storage usage and more VM storage so it may not cost a lot.
The place you will see cost variation is data egress/ingress and it is difficult to forecast as it is all depend on application usage, so this is something you will have to account as variable cost.
You can also contact Windows Azure Virtual Machine Forum where dedicated Windows Azure Virtual Machine resources are available to answer your such questions.
Finally One thing I would also add that Windows Azure Virtual Machines are still in preview mode so it would be best to bring some of your business to Windows Azure VM as trial and testing purpose because now matter what you think you may encounter problems (because it is preview release) and this could case service disruption.
Related
Recently we have upgraded our SSAS resources. Currently our SSAS is on Azure VM costing us based on this VM type 'Standard E32-8s_v3'.
I am looking for a way to save more cost by selecting a better option.
What can be a good option to save cost and at the same time have better efficiency.
what factors/ differences can be considered if we go to Azure analysis services instead of SSAS on Azure VM.
Our SQL server is also on Azure VM.
We have our reports on Power BI report server and SSRS.
Data is coming from different resources like SAP, external parties etc using SSIS.
Can you please Advice/ Suggest a better options for our data architecture.
Thank you.
Your VM is 8 cores and 256GB RAM.
One factor in pricing you haven’t mentioned is SQL licensing. You didn’t specify whether you are renting the SQL license with the VM or bringing your own license and what that costs. I’m going to assume you are renting it. With Azure Analysis Services the license is included in the price.
In Azure Analysis Services 100QPU is roughly equivalent to 5 cores. So 200QPU (an S2) would be an equivalent amount of CPU and a similar price but only has 50GB RAM.
To get the equivalent amount of RAM the S8 would get you close (200GB RAM) but for substantially more cost.
If you have one large model which (at least during peak usage or processing) uses most of the 256GB RAM then it may be tough to move to Azure Analysis Services for a similar price. If you have several models on that one server then you could split them across several smaller Azure Analysis Services servers and it may be a reasonable price for you. Or you could scale up for processing when RAM is needed most and scale down for the rest of the day to save cost.
maybe I should start that I am pretty new with Azure and I want to apologize in advance if my question is stupid. I am currently looking into the option to move my WordPress website to Azure. However, as I was looking through the pre-configured templates, I am quite confused and would be really thankful if someone can explain this for me. (Thank you in advance).
The template, which was created by WordPress for WordPress is using "App Service" model with a tier plan S1 (which comes with 100 total ACU & 1.75GB memory) and according to rough estimate it should be around 75 USD per month.
However, an alternative template created by Cloud Infrastructure Services is using a virtual machine model with a tier plan Standard_B1ms (which comes with 1 vcpu & 2 GiB memory) and according to rough estimate it should be around 36.83 USD per month.
I am quite struggling to understand the difference between the two options and more particular why one is using "App Service" and the other "Virtual Machine". In addition, what are the benefits and disadvantages to use one over the other. For example, when it comes to spikes in website traffic, the need to upgrade to higher tier, reliability, etc. Furthermore, I am not sure what 100 total ACU means. Is this supposed to be more powerful than the output that comes from a 1 core v-cpu? If yes, how much more? Last but not least, would like to hear your general opinion on hosting WordPress website on Azure, as well as, which of the two options would you go with and why? Thank you in advance!
ACU is a made-up measure for estimating the amount of computing power you receive. The ACU is a type of estimator since certain processors have turbo boost and some don't. DTUs for Azure SQL are similar, where DTU is a made-up statistic that combines IOPS, CPU, and RAM.
Azure App Service as "Build, deploy, and scale web apps on a fully managed platform". It's a Platform as a service and hence would be managed in the containers or any operating system can be used. Use the fully managed platform for your operating and monitoring activities to meet stringent, enterprise-grade performance, security, and compliance requirements.
Azure Virtual Machine It provides on-demand, high-scale, secure, virtualized infrastructure. It provides the flexibility of virtualization for a wide range of computing solutions, including development and testing, application execution, and datacenter expansion. It's the flexibility of open-source software set to your specifications.
Hence, Azure App service has lots of advantages as it has got tools with which it can be integrated. Scaling up is an ability using both the services and if you have an fix budget then you can opt Azure Virtual Machines then resize it anytime.
Here, is the Pricing Calculator which might help you to calculate the exact expenditure according the resources you choose.
I would definitely suggest to go for Azure App Service as it has a wide range of advantages.
I have a BizSpark account but I'm struggling to work out what I'm actually entitled to as part of my free Azure package. The package details are listed here:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/offers/details?locale=en-us&offer=ms-azr-0012p&no-rewrite=true
I need to run:
One virtual machine (running Linux) to power the website
One hosted service to provide the client software (Windows Phone and Windows 8) with database access
One hosted service to provide the virtual machine with database access
Two storage accounts (one for images and one for the virtual machine)
One SQL database
Do the hosted services count as VMs and can anybody shed some light on the best configuration (VM sizes etc) to fit all of the above into my subscription please? Multiple instances would be nice but I think I might be getting greedy now!
Thank you.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you 1500 hours of small compute instances (this includes both Cloud Services and Virtual Machines). 1500 hours per month means you can run 2 small instances full time or choose for an equivalent ratio. So you could go for 4 extra small instances and still have room for 2 extra small instances and 1 small instance to use for something else. To keep the SLA (on the hosted service at least) I would suggest the following:
2 extra small instances of a Linux Virtual Machine
2 extra small instances of a hosted service with a web role. The web role would have 2 tasks:
Provide the client software with database access
Provide the Virtual Machine with database access
This might not be the best solution in terms of performance, but you'll be able to run everything high available without having to pay anything extra.
The 2 storage accounts and the SQL Azure database (you must use the web edition) are also covered by the BizSpark subscription.
Update: 1 small = 4 extra small equivalent ratio isn't right. The ratio is 1 small = 6 extra small.
I'm considering to join the Windows Azure Platform Introductory Special, but I'm a little bit afraid of losing money with it. I don't wanna develop any fancy large scale application, I want to join just to learn Azure and do my experiments, what should I be afraid of?
In the transference, it says: "Data Transfers (per region)", what does that mean?
Can I put limits to stop the app if it goes over this plan in order to avoid get charged?
Can it be "pre pay" instead "bill pay"?
Would it be enough for a blog?
Any experiencie so far?
Kind regards.
As ligget pointed out, Azure isn't cost affect as a host for an application that can be easily deployed to a traditional shared hosting provider. Azure's target market are those that want dedicated resources without the need to micro-manage the infrasture and the capability to easily scale up/down based on demand.
That said, here's the answers to the questions you posted:
Data Transfers are based on bandwidth in and out of the hosting data center. bandwidth for communication occuring within components (SQL Azure, Windows Azure, Azure Storage, etc...) in the same datacenter are not billable.
Your usage is not currently capped when the free quotas are used up. However, you will recieved warning emails when those items approach their usage threadsholds.
There is the option to pay your subscription using a PO, but the minimum threshold for most of these operations is $500/month. So as a hobbyist, its unlikely you're wanting that route.
The introductory special does not provide enough resources for hosting a 24x7 personal blog. That level includes only 25hrs of compute resources. Each hour a single instance of your application is deployed will count against this, even if the application received no traffic. Think of it like renting office space. You still pay rent on the office even if there are no customers there.
All this said, there's still much to be learned with the introductory special. The azure development tools allows you to work with Windows Azure and Azure storage locally and get a feel for how they work. The introductory special then lets you deploy those solutions so you can see what works and what doesn't (not everything that works locally works hosted).
I would recommend you host your blog somewhere else - it's a waste of resources running it on Azure and you'll find much cheaper options. A recently introduced extra small instance would be a better choice in this case, but AFAIK it is charged separately as of now, e.g. even when you have an MSDN subscription those extra small instance hours do not count towards free Azure hours that come with the subscription.
There is no pre-pay option I know of and it's not possible to stop the app automatically. It'll be running until the deployment is deleted (beware! even if suspended/stopped the deployment will continue to accrue charges). I believe you will be sent a notification shortly before reaching your free hours threshold.
Be aware that when launching more than 1 instance you are charged for every hour of every instance combined. This can happen for example when you have more than one role in your Azure project (1 web role + 1 worker role - a separate instance will be started for each role).
Data trasfer means your entire data trasfer: blobs/Table storage/queues (transfers between your hosted service and storage account inside the same data center are free) + whatever data is transfered in/out of your hosted application, e.g. when somebody visits your pages. When you create storage accounts and hosted services in Azure you will specify a region that will be hosting your account/app - hosting in Asia is slightly more expensive than in Europe/U.S.
Your best bet would be to contact Microsoft with these questions.
i have an idea of putting my blog on to Azure instead of a regular webhosting company.
The only thing i cannot figure out is if that will be cheaper or not. The good part is the getting-knowledge of Azure but on the other hand it is my personal blog and i really don't wanna spend to much money on it.
So do you have any idea of how the pricing works? I saw some calculator but didn't manage to understand the numbers.
Thanks in advance
You'd have to have a significantly-active blog to justify the costs of Azure. Aside from keeping a web role up and running (and just one instance chews up almost $90 monthly, as ZippyV stated), you'll also have to pay for data.
You do NOT need to invest in SQL Azure though. There's Azure table storage which is much better suited for your blog. It has a table structure, you can define entities (e.g. classes, maybe a BlogEntryClass) that are stored, and the storage costs will run you significantly less than SQL Azure (only $0.15 per GB per month, so your storage costs will likely remain well under a dollar a month for a blog, a small fraction of the cost of SQL Azure).
You'll also pay for bandwidth ($0.15 outbound per GB).
If this is a learning exercise, it's a great investment, but if you have an MSDN Premium account, you can host your blog there - you get 750 compute-hours monthly (enough to run a single role instance 24x7), 10GB table storage, and 14GB monthly outbound data.
Classic webhosting will be a lot cheaper for you. In Azure you need to pay for at least 1 instance (webserver) to run per hour. At then end of the month you will have to pay about 89$ if I remember correctly and that's without SQL Server.
If you want to learn more on how to develop for Azure you can download the SDK and run your project locally. You don't need to pay for it.
EDIT: you can find the pricing here. If you want to add SQL server you pay a minimum of 100$ a month.