Microsoft Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances Now Supported by CloudHealth

CloudHealth Technologies has announced its cloud management platform now supports Microsoft Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances. Azure customers can now benefit from the same features that have been made available to users of AWS EC2 Reserved Instances, helping them to improve budgeting and forecasting, save time on management, and reduce costs.

The benefits of using RIs cannot be understated. According to Microsoft’s Director of Product Marketing, Venkat Gattamnen, reserving VMs in advance and taking advantage of Azure Hybrid Benefits can see customers save as much as 82% on their compute costs.

CloudHealth users are provided with the information they need to make an informed decision about whether RIs suit their requirements and are given valuable insights to ensure they get the best possible return on their investment.

The CloudHealth management platform allows customers to identify reservation purchase opportunities quickly allowing them to take advantage of discounts offered by Microsoft. Users of the platform can receive VM purchase recommendations based on specific subsets of their infrastructure using one of several filters, including subscription, region, and machine series.

While there are cost benefits to be gained from using Azure Reserved VMs over pay-as-you-go instances, RIs involve a significant up-front cost. It will therefore take several months before the cost is recovered and users will break even.

The CloudHealth platform displays the ‘payback period’ – The upfront cost compared to the price of VMs under the pay-as-you-go model.  Users can see exactly how long it will take before cost savings are realized and they can use the information to guide their purchase decisions and eliminate risk. The platform also validates the savings that can be made from purchasing RIs instead of running VMs on demand, and reports can be run showing how the cost of purchasing RIs is distributed over the useful life of the RI.

Once RIs have been purchased, the CloudHealth platform will provide users with valuable insights into actual usage of RIs, identifying instances that are underutilized.

Author: Richard Anderson

Richard Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief of NetSec.news