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.