When it comes to your date with Azure cost optimization, Reservations are needed.
No, I’m not talking about securing your table at a fancy restaurant. I’m talking about a critical aspect of how you can use Microsoft Azure and keep your costs in check. Azure Reservations are pre-purchase commitments that reduce cloud consumption costs by reserving resources in advance.
What are Azure Reservations?
For Microsoft, the concept of cost optimization is foundational to success in the cloud. As one of the five pillars of their Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework, cost optimization as a practice encourages cloud administrators to adopt the process of build, measure, and learn.
That process would look something like this:
- Review your cost principles.
- Develop (or update) cost models, budgets, and spending alerts.
- Measure and analyze your real-world resource consumption with the right set of KPIs.
- Update your resource portfolio, consumption, and commitments.
These steps appear simple enough, however getting cost optimization right can be challenging for many reasons. One common challenge in particular is not fully understanding how Azure Reservations work.
For more on how Azure Reservations work, read the full article in our Azure Cost Optimization Guide.
