Azure Tutorials Series - Best Optimisation practices

Having gone through the Scaling concept in previous article, we know that by using few services such as Azure advisor or Azure Cost management, we could reduce the cost by significant margin, it could save you extra bucks from which you can buy any other resource or Service. In this article we would look at some of the best optimisation practices when you are working on Azure.

Best Optimisation Practices

Infrastructure Saving

  • Use Azure Credits
  • Use spending limits
  • Using reserved instances
  • Choose low cost locations and regions
  • Resizing VMs using Azure Advisor and Azure Cost Management
  • Schedule automated shutdowns of the VMs using Azure Resource Manager(ARM)
  • Delete unused VMs
  • Migrate to PaaS or SaaS services.

Save on Licensing Costs

  • Select OS wisely
  • Bring your own license(BYOL)
  • Use SQL server developer edition
  • Use Dev/Test Subscription offers
    • If you are on Enterprise Agreement(EA) ,use Enterprise Dev/Test else Pay-as-you-go Dev/Test
    • No license charges for windows
Let's see some more in-depth details which can save you some money

We can always balance between cost and performance 

Using Meters 
  • For each resource purchased, an instance is created to track its usage. Customer is charged on monthly basis based on the usage. After which meters are reset.
Bandwidth
  • Transfers involving inbound date to Azure are free whereas outbound data is charged.
Azure Pricing Calculator
  • Azure provides free calculator to get an estimate for the services
  • Azure Pricing calculator let's you modify few parameter such as 
    • Region
    • Tier - Basic, low priority or Standard
    • Billling options
    • Support options
    • Azure Dev/Test pricing
Azure Advisor
  • Gives recommendations on 
    • Reduces cost by eliminating unprovisioned Azure ExpressRoute circuits
    • Buy Reserved instances to save money over pay-as-you-go
    • Analysis of the usage over last 30 days and recommendations
    • Recommends regions where you could save some money
    •  Allows shutdown of under-utilised machines, scale in or scale out
Azure Cost Management
  • Allows users to set budgets, schedule reports and analyse cost areas.
  • Features of Azure Cost management are 
    • Report on cost and usage
    • Categorise by resource tags
    • Manage and alert cost and usage budgets
    • Free for Azure
Azure TCO(Total Cost of Ownership) Calculator
  • Online tool -
  • Compares on-prem vs cloud costs
  • Gives you an estimation on how much you can save.


These were few hacks/ practices which could help you save few bucks for Azure subscription.

Happy Learning!

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