4 - Pricing and Support

Question 1

How do you pay for Microsoft

Answer 1

MS - Pay as you go
MS - Enterprise Agreement
MS Partner - Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partner

Question 2

Best Practices for Reducing Costs in Azure

Answer 2

●Azure Advisor cost tab for recommendations
● Auto shutdown of Dev/QA resources
● Storage lifecycle - hot, cool, archive storage tiers
● Utilize reserved instances (1 or 3 year contract) if you’re likely to use a VM for that long
● Configure alerts when billing exceeds an expected level
● Use Azure Policy to prevent excessive spending like restricting VM SKUs
● Implement automatic scaling to reduce costs
● Downsize resources like managed storage accounts that are a lot bigger than you actually need
● Use tags to more easily identify named owners/projects of running resources in Azure

Question 3

Azure Free Account features

Answer 3

• $200 limit to use within 30 days
• 12 months of services entirely free (VMs, storage, etc)
• 25+ services are always free

Question 4

Azure Cost Management

Answer 4

Analyze historical spending, schedule reports

Question 5

How to open Support Ticket

Answer 5

1. Sign in to the Azure portal
2. Go to Troubleshooting + Support and select New support request.
3. Choose Issue type, select Technical.
4. Choose Subscription
5. Choose Service
6. Severity.

Question 6

Basic - Support Features

Answer 6

• Free
• SLA 99.9%
• Open Support ticket for Billing questions

Question 7

Developer - Support Features

Answer 7

• E-mail - During business hours
• Sev C
• General Advice

Question 8

Standard - Support Features

Answer 8

Phone and E-mail 247

• Sev ABC
• General advice

Question 9

Professional - Support Features

Answer 9

Phone and E-mail 247

• Sev ABC
• More specific advice, onboarding and consultation

Question 10

Premiere - Support Features

Answer 10

• Support for all Microsoft products including Azure

- Price not published

Question 11

Factors Affecting Cost

Answer 11

• Resource Type: Costs are resource-specific, so the usage that a meter tracks and the number of meters associated with a resource depend on the resource type.
• Service: Azure usage rates and billing periods can differ between Enterprise, Web Direct, and Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) customers. Some subscription types also include usage allowances, which affect costs.
• Location: Azure has datacenters all over the world. Usage costs vary between locations that offer particular Azure products, services, and resources based on popularity, demand, and local infrastructure costs.

Question 12

Best Practices for Minimizing Azure Costs

Answer 12

Spending Limits:
Quotas:
Tags:
Reserved Instances

Question 13

Available Support Channels outside of Support Plan Channels

Answer 13

Azure Knowledge Center
Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Forums
Stack Overflow
Server Fault
Azure Feedback Forums
Twitter

Question 14

Determine SLA for a particular Azure product or service

Answer 14

• Performance Targets
• Uptime and Connectivity Guarantees
• Service credits (percentage of the applicable monthly service fees credited to you if a service fails to meet uptime guarantee)