Lock in Azure commitments
Reservations and savings plans: stop paying pay-as-you-go for steady-state Azure workloads.
Lessons in this path
- 1 Cost AZURE
Apply Azure Hybrid Benefit to VMs and SQL
One capability across Windows VMs, Linux VMs and Azure SQL: stop paying Azure a second time for licences you already own, by reusing your Software Assurance, RHEL and SUSE entitlements to drop the licence component out of compute you are already running.
14 min - 2 Cost AZURE
Buy reserved capacity for blob storage
Steady block blob and Data Lake Gen2 capacity is paying full pay-as-you-go rates by default. A one or three year reserved-capacity commitment discounts that same storage automatically, with no change to how the data is stored or served.
14 min - 3 Cost AZURE
Reserve App Service capacity for steady web apps
When a Premium v3 or Isolated v2 App Service plan runs around the clock, you are paying the full pay-as-you-go rate every hour for capacity you already know you need. A one or three year reserved instance pre-commits to that steady baseline and trims a large slice off the compute bill, with no change to how the app runs.
13 min - 4 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure Cache for Redis reserved capacity
One cost lever across Premium, Enterprise and Enterprise Flash caches: when a cache runs around the clock, prepaying its compute with a one or three year reservation cuts the pay-as-you-go rate, and the discount auto-applies to every matching cache without touching the workload.
14 min - 5 Cost AZURE
Commit to an Azure savings plan for compute
One capability across virtual machines, App Service, Container Instances and the rest of eligible compute: take the steady baseline you already run around the clock and pay the discounted committed rate for it instead of full pay-as-you-go, without locking yourself to a single VM size or region.
14 min - 6 Cost AZURE
Reserve Azure Cosmos DB capacity
One capability across every Cosmos DB account: find the provisioned throughput you run around the clock at a steady floor, and stop paying the pay-as-you-go rate for request units you were always going to use, by committing to a one or three year reserved capacity purchase.
14 min - 7 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure Data Explorer reserved capacity
Azure Advisor flags clusters with steady, predictable usage where a one or three year commitment to the Azure Data Explorer markup meter takes that line item off pay-as-you-go rates. This lesson is about turning that recommendation into a sized, scoped purchase that lowers the bill without changing how anything runs.
13 min - 8 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure Data Factory reserved capacity
Azure Advisor has spotted that your Data Factory data flows run a steady baseline of compute at the pay-as-you-go rate. A reserved-capacity commitment buys the same cores up front for a one or three year term at a discount, and the saving lands on the bill automatically without touching a single pipeline.
13 min - 9 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure Dedicated Host reserved instances
One capability that turns a steady, always-on Dedicated Host bill into a committed-use discount: spot the hosts that run around the clock, confirm the saving with Advisor, and prepay a one- or three-year reservation that drops the rate without touching the workload.
14 min - 10 Cost AZURE
Buy Microsoft Fabric reserved capacity
Azure Advisor spots steady, predictable Microsoft Fabric capacity running at the pay-as-you-go rate and recommends a one or three year reservation. This is one of the cleanest savings on the Azure bill: a commitment that discounts compute you are already consuming, with no change to how the capacity runs.
14 min - 11 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure Files reserved capacity
One capability for the storage bill: take the steady, always-on portion of your Azure Files capacity off the pay-as-you-go meter and put it on a one or three year reservation, so you stop paying the on-demand rate for storage you keep all year anyway.
14 min - 12 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure Managed Disk reserved capacity
One cost capability: commit to the Premium SSD disks you already run around the clock and pay a one-year reserved rate instead of pay-as-you-go, without touching a single disk or workload.
14 min - 13 Cost AZURE
Reserve Azure Database for MySQL capacity
A steady MySQL Flexible Server billed at pay-as-you-go is paying a premium for flexibility it never uses. Committing to a one or three year reservation on the same compute removes that premium from the bill, with no change to the server and no change to performance.
14 min - 14 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure NetApp Files reserved capacity
One cost capability: take the storage you already run at a steady level on Azure NetApp Files and commit it to a one or three year reservation, so the same capacity is billed at the discounted rate instead of the on-demand rate, without changing a single volume.
14 min - 15 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure OpenAI provisioned throughput reservations
One capability for AI spend: when a provisioned throughput deployment runs around the clock, swap the hourly pay-as-you-go rate for a one-month or one-year reservation and stop paying list price for capacity you were always going to use.
13 min - 16 Cost AZURE
Reserve Azure Database for PostgreSQL capacity
One cost lever for steady-state databases: prepay the compute you already run for a one or three year term, and stop paying the pay-as-you-go rate on capacity that never switches off.
14 min - 17 Cost AZURE
Buy a Red Hat software reserved plan
Azure Advisor is telling you that a fleet of Red Hat Enterprise Linux VMs is paying the on-demand software rate hour after hour. A one-year or three-year Red Hat software plan prepays that licence cost at a discount, applies automatically to matching VMs, and leaves the compute bill untouched.
13 min - 18 Cost AZURE
Reserve SQL PaaS database capacity
One decision that takes a stable Azure SQL Database or Managed Instance bill and cuts the compute line by committing to capacity you are already running, without changing a single database.
14 min - 19 Cost AZURE
Buy Blob storage reserved capacity
One capability: commit to the steady, predictable base of Blob and Data Lake Gen2 storage you keep year after year, and pay the reserved rate for it instead of the pay-as-you-go rate, without changing a single byte of how the data is stored.
13 min - 20 Cost AZURE
Buy a SUSE Linux software reserved plan
When Azure Advisor flags steady SUSE Linux usage, a software reserved plan trades a one-year or three-year commitment for a documented discount of up to 64% on the SUSE software charge, applied automatically to every matching VM you already run.
13 min - 21 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure Synapse Analytics reserved capacity
One cost capability for the dedicated SQL pool: when a Synapse data warehouse runs at a steady cDWU level around the clock, commit that baseline to a one or three-year reservation so the compute stops being billed at the pay-as-you-go rate, and pocket the difference on the Azure bill.
14 min - 22 Cost AZURE
Reserve virtual machine instances for steady workloads
One capability across the compute estate: find the virtual machines that run around the clock at a stable size, and stop paying the on-demand rate for capacity you were always going to use, by committing to a one or three year reservation.
14 min - 23 Cost AZURE
Buy Azure VMware Solution reserved instances
One capability across an Azure VMware Solution estate: pay for the host nodes you are going to run anyway up front, on a one or three year commitment, and let the reservation discount strip the on-demand premium out of the compute and bundled licensing.
14 min - 24 Cost AZURE
Move Log Analytics to a commitment pricing tier
One change on the bill: when a Log Analytics workspace ingests a predictable volume of data every day, moving it off pay-as-you-go onto a commitment tier buys the same gigabytes at a lower unit price, with no change to retention, queries or alerting.
13 min - 25 Cost AZURE
Renew expiring reservations before they lapse
One capability across every reservation in the estate: make sure no committed discount silently expires and reverts the workload behind it to on-demand rates, unless you genuinely mean to let it go.
13 min