Reservations
- 13 Nov 2024
- 2 Minutes to read
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Reservations
- Updated on 13 Nov 2024
- 2 Minutes to read
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Contributors
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A reservation is a way to save money by committing to Microsoft that you will use a resource. By giving this commitment you will then get a discount from Microsoft for the use of the resource.
You give Microsoft predictable demand, they give you a discount.
Reservations will have a scope to which they are applied and then resources within that scope can have the reservation applied if they match the requirements of the reservation and there is space on the reservation.
Reserved Instances vs Reserved Capacity
There isnt really a huge difference between what these terms means. They are both reservations but they are just associated with different groups or resources.
Reserved Instances tend to be compute based resources such as Virtual Machines and App Services
Reserved Capacity tends to be things like storage and databases
The principals are the same, you commit to an amount of regular usage and you get a discount.
More Info
If you would like to learn more about Reservations and Savings Plans the below video where we talk with Obinna Nwokolo from the Microsoft Commercial team may be interesting to you.
FAQ
FAQ
Can reservations be cancelled or refunded?
Yes but there are some constraints on this so be sure to check the documentation.
If I want to change the size of a resource how will that affect my reservation?
There is some flexibility to change resources. If we are talking about a virtual machine then you can change the size as long as it is within the family supported by the instance flexibility configuration of your reservation then it will still apply
What if I change the size of my VM and it is no longer matching the reservation?
If your VM no longer matches the reservation then it will no longer be discounted. If you have other virtual machines of a size that matches the reservation within the scope the reservation covers then these resources will match the reservation and have the discount applied instead
Can I apply the reservation to a specific Virtual machine
No, Azure automatically determines the best virtual machine to apply the reservation to within the scope of the reservation and machines that match the reservation.
The scope can be as granular as a resource group so if you want to leverage reservations for your specific application in your team then you may want to focus their use to apply to a subscription or resource group.
There is a trade off here as reservations applied at a higher level can be more flexible, used across other applications which makes it easier to maximize their use, but the trade off is it may be that if your reservation is a shared scope then a project might purchase a reservation but find that the reservation was applied on a resource for a different teams application. Plan your scopes accordingly
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