Cloud computing has become imperative for businesses aiming to maintain competitiveness, agility, and innovation. Despite its evident advantages, the perceived high cost has been a major deterrent for some businesses contemplating a move to the cloud.
However, this perception is evolving, especially with cloud providers like Azure continuously striving to enhance affordability, accessibility, and scalability. This blog post delves into the noteworthy reduction in Azure costs observed over the past couple of years.
Upon revisiting a few quotes generated with the Azure Pricing Calculator in 2022, a tangible decrease in costs has become apparent.
Detailed Service Breakdown
| Service category | Service type | Region | Description | Oct 2022 | Jan 2024 |
| Management and Governance | Azure Backup | UK South | Azure VMs, 65 Instance(s) x 670 GB, GRS Redundancy | £9,356.40 | £7,038.86 |
| Networking | Azure Firewall | UK South | Premium tier, 2 Logical firewall units x 730 Hours, 100 GB Data processed | £2,379.01 | £1,999.30 |
| Networking | Azure Firewall Manager | UK South | 1 Parent Policies. “Policy 1” (Policy 1): 2 Firewall(s), 2 Region(s) | £186.11 | £156.40 |
| Networking | VPN Gateway | UK South | VPN Gateways, VpnGw1AZ tier, 730 gateway hour(s), 0 additional S2S tunnels (beyond included amount), 0 additional P2S connections (beyond included amount), 0 GB, Inter-VNET VPN gateway type | £245.22 | £206.08 |
| Networking | VPN Gateway | UK West | VPN Gateways, VpnGw1AZ tier, 730 gateway hour(s), 0 additional S2S tunnels (beyond included amount), 0 additional P2S connections (beyond included amount), 0 GB, Inter-VNET VPN gateway type | £245.22 | £206.08 |
| Total | £12,411.96 | £9,606.73 |
The evident 22% decrease in price is a pleasant shock..
Three-Year Reserved Instances Breakdown
| Service category | Service type | Region | Description | Oct 2022 | Jan 2024 |
| Compute | Virtual Machines | UK South | 2X F8s (8 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM) (3 year reserved), Windows (License included), OS Only; 0 managed disks – S4; Inter Region transfer type, 5 GB outbound data transfer from UK South to East Asia | £762.60 | £624.57 |
| Compute | Virtual Machines | UK South | 1X B8ms (8 vCPUs, 32 GB RAM) (3 year reserved), Windows (License included), OS Only; 0 managed disks – S4; Inter Region transfer type, 5 GB outbound data transfer from UK South to East Asia | £109.66 | £99.31 |
| Compute | Virtual Machines | UK South | 8 X B2ms (2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM) (3 year reserved), Windows (License included), OS Only; 0 managed disks – S4; Inter Region transfer type, 5 GB outbound data transfer from UK South to East Asia | £219.36 | £198.66 |
| Compute | Virtual Machines | UK South | 1 X B20ms (20 vCPUs, 80 GB RAM) (3 year reserved), Windows (License included), OS Only; 0 managed disks – S4; Inter Region transfer type, 5 GB outbound data transfer from UK South to East Asia | £274.21 | £248.34 |
| Compute | Virtual Machines | UK South | 1 X D4as v4 (4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM) (3 year reserved), Windows (License included), OS Only; 0 managed disks – S4; Inter Region transfer type, 5 GB outbound data transfer from UK South to East Asia | £168.61 | £152.70 |
| Compute | Virtual Machines | UK South | 1 X F2s v2 (2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM) (3 year reserved), Windows (License included), OS Only; 0 managed disks – S4; Inter Region transfer type, 5 GB outbound data transfer from UK South to East Asia | £80.97 | £78.07 |
| Total | £1,615.41 | £1,401.65 |
This represents a reduction of approximately 13%.
Conclusion
In summary, Azure has significantly lowered cloud migration costs for businesses, accompanied by improvements in features. Azure customers can now enjoy reduced expenses, increased value, and enhanced outcomes from their cloud investments. If cost concerns have held your business back from migrating to the cloud, reconsidering your decision and exploring Azure’s offerings could align with your business goals.
Alan Curtis 