If you're working in the cloud, you're part of a rapidly growing industry. Global spending on public cloud services is set to double, reaching $482 billion in 2024, up from $243 billion in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.5% What's the takeaway? With organizations increasingly depending on cloud services, managing costs effectively is a must. Otherwise, the expenses will pile up, and money will flow down. But there is a saving grace, and that's understanding cloud cost at a granular level. Even better, some third-party cloud platforms offer this feature hourly. But let's get granular on how cloud hourly cost matters and how it can benefit your cloud strategy. Cost Management and Optimization Let’s face it. Collecting data hourly is better than daily. Daily reports offer a simple summary but lead to slower responses to issues detected during the day. An hourly analysis provides real-time monitoring, operational efficiency, performance tuning, and anomaly detection. This is a huge advantage when it comes to managing costs. By using hourly cost data, organizations can monitor cloud spending closely, saving money and managing budgets more effectively. Here's what you'll find in an hourly analysis for cloud optimization. Detailed Cost Tracking & Identifying Trends Hourly data gives detailed insights into cloud spending, helping you track and control costs precisely. This level of detail lets businesses monitor expenses closely, find where to cut costs without sacrificing performance, allocate budgets more effectively, and avoid unnecessary expenses by knowing when and how resources are used. But wait, there’s more… Businesses can pinpoint high and low activity periods by obtaining information on hourly usage patterns and trends. This info helps fine-tune how resources are used and cut down on unnecessary spending, making operations leaner and more efficient. Resource Utilization Everyone appreciates ROI, and in the cloud, organizations can boost application performance by 15% through cloud optimization strategies, with efficient resource utilization playing a key role. But how does seeing this on an hourly granular level optimize resource allocation? Efficiency & Scaling Decisions Monitoring cloud usage every hour helps you make the most of your resources, reduce wasted cloud space, and avoid unnecessary costs associated with having too much capacity or experiencing performance issues. By spotting cloud usage in real time, organizations can identify unused resources, such as idle storage, and optimize their cloud investments. Checking hourly means adjusting resources based on actual demand so you're not left with too much or too little. Even better? Hourly data helps you adjust scaling based on usage patterns, cutting costs during low usage and ensuring ample capacity during peak times. Efficient resource management is made simple. Long story short: checking cloud usage hourly is key to using your resources well, making smart investments, and keeping up with demand. Compliance and Reporting Tracking hourly usage and costs is key to meeting regulations and keeping stakeholders informed. Different industries, such as health and finance, have compliance rules. Accurate records are a strong asset for meeting these requirements, and hourly data provides the needed specifics for compliance. Here's what to expect from investing in hourly cloud data. Regulatory Compliance & Transparent Reporting Detailed hourly tracking is essential for ensuring compliance with various regulatory requirements. By maintaining accurate, real-time, and auditable records of resource usage and costs, organizations can meet stringent standards set by - Data protection regulations like GDPR and HIPAA - Financial regulations such as SOX and FISMA - Industry-specific standards, including PCI DSS This level of detail helps catch any unauthorized access or oddities immediately, keeping info safe and operations running smoothly. But that’s not all! Hourly tracking aids in transparency when reporting to stakeholders. By giving detailed breakdowns of resource use and costs, stakeholders like investors, execs, and regulators get key insights into the organization's efficiency and financial well-being in the cloud. This detailed approach helps improve financial planning, resource responsibility, and stakeholder trust. Utilizing detailed cloud cost data showcases adherence to governance standards and sustainability goals, demonstrating a commitment to excellence. Chargeback and Showback As frequent cloud users, you know the importance of chargeback and showback. Their financial management techniques allocate cloud costs to specific departments or organizational projects to promote awareness and encourage cost-saving behaviors without directly affecting each unit’s budget. Hourly data facilitates accurate chargeback or showback processes by providing detailed insights into department, project, or team resource usage. This level of detail promotes accountability by ensuring that costs are attributed to the appropriate units, encouraging responsible usage and cost-saving behaviors. By understanding their consumption patterns, departments can take steps to optimize their spending and manage their resources more efficiently. Cost Allocation & Accountability Incorporating hourly tracking into chargeback and showback processes boosts accuracy and transparency.. Getting detailed insights into resource usage by department, project, or team ensures every unit gets billed spot-on for what they use. Breaking down cloud usage hourly helps finance teams craft more precise financial models and forecasts. This detailed data helps organizations: – Assign costs accurately, – Making budget management – Expense justifications a breeze. Accountability is a must in the cloud, and using FinOps and accurately allocating costs is vital for fostering accountability in an organization. Businesses promote responsible usage and cost-saving habits by ensuring that costs are linked to the right units—like departments, projects, or teams. Tracking costs hourly help each unit grasp their consumption trends in real time, empowering them to optimize spending. This boosts cost efficiency and enhances strategic decision-making, allowing departments to align resource usage with organizational objectives more effectively. Strategic Decision Making Access to detailed hourly data lets you make smarter strategic decisions about infrastructure investments, service deployment, and cloud strategy. By using data to guide decisions, organizations can improve their cloud strategy and infrastructure planning, leading to better financial and operational results. Everyone appreciates transparent deals. Detailed usage data gives you leverage in cloud provider negotiations, securing better terms and optimizing contracts. No surprises in the fine print! Let’s look at this a bit more closely. Informed Decisions & Vendor Negotiations Accessing detailed hourly data steps up the game when making smart decisions about infrastructure, service deployment, and overall cloud strategy. Organizations can spot patterns, boost performance, and manage resources more efficiently by diving into resource usage trends. This data-driven approach gives businesses the tools to plan and carry out projects with laser-sharp precision and confidence, ensuring decisions are always grounded in solid evidence. Real-time analysis of usage patterns means you can make quick adjustments, lower risks, and get the most out of your investments. This keeps organizations nimble and ready to tackle changing needs, fostering growth and innovation. To secure the best deal in vendor negotiations, having a thorough grasp of usage and costs gives your organization an advantage when discussing terms with cloud service providers. Armed with detailed data, companies can pinpoint areas of overspending or underuse, using this intel to push for better terms and deals. This level of insight allows organizations to demand tailor-made solutions that fit their needs to a tee. Plus, having a clear view of consumption helps businesses predict future needs more accurately, which can shape long-term contracts and bulk buying deals at discounted rates. The end result? Not just saving money but also improving service quality and vendor relationships. Umbrella's New Features Maximize Hourly Granularity in the Cloud  We are proud to introduce that Hourly cost and usage are now available as part of Cost & Usage Explorer and Assets for GCP and will soon be available for AWS. What is our Cost & Usage Explorer? Our exclusive features help you understand your billing, customize displays, and create detailed reports. The core features of Cost & Usage Explorer capture the essence by helping you manage costs effectively. Categorize costs by service, region, account, and tags. Use filters to focus on specific resource costs and gain detailed insights from data points. Customize your view with graph options and table displays for deeper analysis. For a comprehensive evaluation, explore different cost types like unblended, amortized, net unblended, and net amortized. Explore more of our Cost & Usage Explorer.   Hourly cloud insights preserve cost predictability Understanding and leveraging hourly cost and usage data is paramount for any organization striving to excel in the cloud. This granular approach can impact your cloud cost management on a multitude of levels, businesses can identify inefficiencies, optimize resource allocation, and reduce waste, leading to substantial cost savings. This level of detail really helps organizations tackle issues fast, cutting downtime and boosting system reliability. Cloud insights with Hourly Granularity can be a real time and money saver, and shouldn’t be treated as an added bonus on third-party cloud platforms. That’s why at Umbrella, we’re constantly evolving our Cost & Usage Explorer to meet the ongoing demands of MSPs and FinOps in the cloud. We understand the need to have the ability to understand your billing and our proud to launch our new GCP addition as as part of Cost & Usage Explorer and Assets tool with AWS right around the corner. If you want accurate hourly granularity you need a reliable partner that’s always their in your cloud’s hour of need. That’s us. Let’s talk.  

Trying to find the best virtual machine on the market that gives you the flexibility of easy scalability and the promise of a secure network – and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg (and maybe another arm)? Azure VM is likely the best solution for you… assuming you can project costs correctly. However, Azure doesn’t make it easy with its different offerings and pricing models. It's worth noting that Azure VM pricing is competitive compared to other cloud service providers, especially when you consider the flexibility and scalability it offers. We’ll break things down so you can determine which pricing model and Azure VM type is best for your company – and your budget. In this article: What is Azure VM? What are the Azure VM pricing models? What Azure VM type should I get? Optimize your Azure VM spend with Umbrella solutions What is Azure VM? Azure VM or Azure Virtual Machines is Azure’s on-demand cloud-based computing resource for Linux or Windows users to run, develop, or test applications and systems. It helps improve storage and network output with custom hardware and provides advanced security to protect against cybersecurity attacks across any platform or device. Azure VMs are scalable, so you can comfortably increase your usage to the thousands depending on your needs. You can scale across the cloud, adding or eliminating VMs according to live demand, giving you flexible scalability. This means you can adjust your VM resources in real-time to match your workload, which can help you optimize performance and control costs. Azure VM also enables you to connect VMs to your network, creating an extended data center. But, as we said above, Azure VMs are tricky regarding price. Different types of VMs are available for purchase, with pay-as-you-go, one year, and three year payment cycles. We’ll start by breaking down the different Azure VM pricing models so you can decide which offering works best for you and your company.   What are the Azure VM pricing models? There are three types of Azure VM pricing models. The best for your company depends on how many VMs you need and how long you need them. Reserved VM instances pricing model If you’re sure you need VMs for over a year or three in a specific region and have a steady use case for your application (and want to save up to 72% on VM prices), reserved VM instances are the way to go. With this model, you can easily project VM prices for the next one to three years, get automated control of Azure RIs because of instance size flexibility, and be first in line for compute capacity in your Azure region. If the one—or three-year commitment makes you nervous, you can always cancel early for a cancellation fee or exchange your selected VM service for another VM offering. You can also pay your bills monthly, not all upfront. Pay-as-you-go pricing model Pay-as-you-go pricing means Microsoft charges you for each second a VM is running. This means you’re only paying for active use, and careful attention to your resources is a must. This pricing model can be beneficial for companies with fluctuating workloads, as they only pay for the resources they use. However, careful monitoring and management of VM usage is required to avoid unexpected costs. If you need the flexibility to increase or decrease your VM capacity and don’t want to lock in a one—or three-year commitment, this is a solid choice… so long as you’re prepared to eat the larger bill. Free VM pricing model Free! What’s not to like? Azure offers a free credit trial that allows you to earn $200 in credits for the first 30 days of your trial period. Other services are free for up to the first 12 months of using Azure products. This is a great opportunity for companies to test Azure VMs and other services without committing to a long-term contract or incurring immediate costs. In that time, you can operate in any Azure-supported region and develop multiple instances (so long as you play within the confines of their free offerings). For example, you can use 750 hours for B1s burstable VM each month for up to 12 months. The downside of this is apparent: if you’re handling heavier workloads, you will hit a wall and fast. But this is a great way to sample Azure’s services to see if they fit well with your company. What Azure VM type should I get?   Azure Virtual Machines breaks down into six different categories:  Type Sizes Description General Purpose Av2, B, DCv2, Dv2, DSv2, Dv3, Dsv3, Dav4, Dasv4,Ddv4, Ddsv4, Dv4,Dsv4 VM, with a balance of CPU to memory, is made for testing and development in small to medium databases. Compute Optimized Fsv2, Fs, F Higher ratio of CPU to memory VM ideal for network applications, batch processing, and servers with medium traffic. Memory Optimized Esv3, Ev3, M, GS, G, DSv2, DS, Dv2, D Ideal for medium to large in-memory analytics or relational database servers due to the higher ratio of memory to CPU. Storage Optimized Ls Contains IO and high disk throughput, making it ideal for SQL/NoSQL databases, big data, data warehousing, and more. High-Performance Compute H, A8-11 Premium CPU support and resources make this VM ideal for high computing and mission-critical tasks. GPU NV, NC, NCv2, ND Provides GPU-based processing, making it ideal for model training and inference, rendering, and video editing.   Within each of these six categories, there are also 10 different sizes of Azure VM: A series VM: Best for economical entry-level dev testing and code repositories. Basic and Standard A-series VMs will retire on August 31st, 2024. A-series prices start at $11.68 per month. For instance, a startup company that is developing a new software application might find the A series VMs to be a cost-effective option for their initial testing and development needs. B series VM: Low-cost option for low to moderate baseline CPU utilization workloads that can burst to higher CPU if needed. Bursting is a feature that allows a VM to temporarily increase its performance to handle a sudden increase in workload. This can be beneficial for companies with unpredictable workloads, as it allows them to handle peak demands without having to provision additional resources. Bs-Series prices start at $3.80 per month. D series VM: General purpose compute offering that can meet the vCPU, memory, and temporary storage requirements of most production workloads. Broken down into the Dv3, Dv4, Ddv4, Dv5, and other series, all of which have varying processing power. Prices start at $41.61 per month. E series VM: Optimized for in-memory applications like SAP HANA, memory-intensive enterprise tools, and large database servers because of high memory-to-care ratio configurations. Prices start at $58.40 per month. F series VM: Compute-optimized VM because of a higher CPU-to-memory ratio. Suitable for batch processing, analytics, gaming, and web servers. Prices start at $35.77. G series VM: Two times more memory and four times more SSD storage than general-purpose D-series, making it suitable for large SQL and NoSQL databases, SAP, ERP, and data warehousing. Prices start at $320.47 per month. H series VM: Broken down into the HB series, which is optimized for HPC applications like weather simulation and silicon RTL modeling. The HC-series is optimized for intensive computation HPC applications like implicit finite element analysis, computational chemistry, and reservoir simulation. Prices start at $581.08 per month. Ls series VM: Storage-optimized VM ideal for low latency, local disk storage, and high-throughput applications. Prices start at $455.52 per month. M series VM: Ideal for heavy in-memory workloads like SAP HANA with up to t4 TB of RAM on a single VM. Prices start at $1,121.28 per month. Also, the MV2-series offers 416 vCPU on a single VM and 3 TB, 6 TB, and 12 TB memory configurations. Prices start at $16,286.30 per month. N series VM: GPU-enabled VM ideal for compute and graphic-intensive workloads. Broken down into the NC-series for high-performance computing and machine learning, the NDs-series ideal for training and deep learning, and the NV-series ideal for remote visualization workloads. Prices start at $657 per month. Example setups Azure VM pricing is complex because there are so many varieties to choose from. You’ll need to understand what kinds of servers you need support for, how much traffic you’re handling, and, more importantly, the tasks you’ll be undertaking. That will inform you which VM works best for you and how much that VM will cost. For example, let's say you've just started with some entry-level dev testing. The primary A series works best for you. If you need two cores, you’ll work with the A2 v2 instance, providing 4 GiB of RAM and 20 GiB of temporary storage. Here’s what your price breakdown would look like: Pay as you go: $65.9190 per month 1-year savings plan: $44.5665 per month 3-year savings plan: $29.7110 per month Say you need something with more computing that can handle most production workloads. You can go with the D series instead. If you're looking for something with temporary local storage and processor frequencies that can reach up to 3.5GHz, the Dads v5 series is a good choice. If you need more RAM and temporary storage, go with the D48ads v5 instance, which provides 48 vCPUs, 192 GiB of RAM, and 1,800 GiB of temporary storage. Your Azure price breakdown would look like this: Pay as you go: $1,804.5600 per month 1-year savings plan: $1,237.2869 per month 3-year savings plan: $825.9439 per month Or maybe you don’t need any temporary storage but want VM-level isolation to help remove cloud operators without additional code modification. The DCasv5 series might be a good choice. You can go with the DC8as V5 instance, which provides 8 vCPUs and 32 GiB of RAM. Here’s your price breakdown: Pay as you go: $251.1200 per month 1-year savings plan: $212.2986 per month 3-year savings plan: $163.4324 per month All prices are for the East US region. Need more info on Azure pricing plans? Check out our detailed guides to Azure Functions Pricing, Azure Hybrid Benefit and Azure Backup Pricing. Optimize your Azure VM spend with Umbrella solutions   Now that you know the ins and outs of Azure pricing, don’t sweat about the final bill. Focus on providing quality services and meeting quarterly goals while saving up to 40% on annual cloud spend with Umbrella's Cloud Cost Management solution. Umbrella's cloud cost management solution offers comprehensive visibility into your Azure VM bill, ensuring complete control over your cloud budget. An Umbrella partnership means no surprise costs and unites your FinOps, DevOps, and Finance teams to drive down your overall expenditure. Need proof of concept? Talk to us for more insight into cloud usage, costs, and how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools.

Azure Structured Query Language (SQL) has 18 different deployment options, service tiers, compute models, and two different pricing models: vCores and Database Transaction Units (DTU). Because of these complexities, it’s nearly impossible to project monthly budgets! This guide, part of our Azure Pricing series, will explain the common Azure SQL pricing configurations and offer tips on optimizing your cloud budget. In this article: What is Azure SQL database? Pricing by service tiers for Azure SQL Optimizing Azure SQL pricing What is Azure SQL database?   An Azure SQL database is a cloud-based SQL server that handles automated database management functions like upgrades, patches, backups, and monitoring. This type of database is appealing because it can scale and offers hands-off service offerings. Azure SQL pricing is so complicated because of the different prices associated with the deployment methods, service, and compute tiers. First, there are three different deployment methods, then three service tiers, and finally, two compute models, not to mention the already 18 different types of offerings – and that’s not even getting into if you want to pick a DTU or vCore model. We’ll discuss different examples of how these prices fluctuate depending on whether you choose a DTU model with a managed instance deployment method in the hyperscale provisioned compute model, but for now, let’s define some of these terms. Deployment methods There are two pricing models for Azure Functions: Consumption and Premium. Let’s break down these models so you can decide which works best for you and your business: 1. Managed instance The model that gets you a fully managed Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine. Expect easy on-premise SQL Server database migrations. 2. Elastic pool Provides shared resources via a group of Azure SQL Single Databases. 3. Single database As it sounds, this is a single database used by an organization. Service tiers Now that we’ve finished covering the different deployment models, here’s a breakdown of the three service tiers you should expect. (Again, we’ll discuss these in terms of largest to smallest). 1. Hyperscale Best used for enormous Online transaction processing (OLTP) systems. With this service tier, you can auto-scale storage and compute commands. 2. Premium/Business critical Best used for medium to large OLTP systems. Expect high latency and low resilience. 3. Standard/General purpose Best service tier for common workloads. Compute models There are also two compute models you should be aware of: 1. Provisioned This compute model includes Azure resources to help you run your database. 2. Serverless This model acts as a serverless component. Expect auto-scaling compute with billing per second use. Pricing by service tiers for Azure SQL Now that we've covered the different deployment options and compute models, here's what the two Azure SQL pricing models, DTU and vCore, look like. We've included breakdowns of example costs for common combinations with these pricing models. DTU stands for Database Transaction Units. It measures the compute resources needed to keep your database running. You can use Azure's DTU calculator to determine exactly how many DTUs you need. Prices increase depending on the number of DTUs your database requires and the storage needed. No matter your DTU selection, you’ll get a minimum of 250 GB of storage. Here’s an example of what Azure SQL DTU pricing for the Standard instance in the Eastern US region looks like: DTU Model DTU stands for Database Transaction Units. It measures the compute resources needed to keep your database running. You can use Azure's DTU calculator to determine exactly how many DTUs you need. Prices increase depending on the number of DTUs your database requires and the storage needed. No matter your DTU selection, you’ll get a minimum of 250 GB of storage. Here’s an example of what Azure SQL DTU pricing for the Standard instance in the Eastern US region looks like: DTUs  Included storage  Max storage  Price for DTUs + storage S0   10 250 GB 250 GB $0.0202/hour S1   20 250 GB 250 GB $0.0404/hour S2   50 250 GB 250 GB $0.1009/hour S3   100 250 GB 1 TB $0.2017/hour S4   200 250 GB 1 TB $0.4033/hour S6   400 250 GB 1 TB $0.8066/hour S7   800 250 GB 1 TB $1.6130/hour S9   1,600 250 GB 1 TB $3.2260/hour S12   3,000 250 GB 1 TB $6.0488/hour vCore Mode The vCore pricing model is more flexible than the DTU model. You can use virtual cores to measure your resources similarly to using on-premise server cores. To provide the most detail, here’s a close-up of how vCore pricing changes depending on whether you choose the provisioned or serverless compute model. Provisioned compute Provisioned compute prices are calculated based on the number of vCores you choose. Be aware that vCore prices can fluctuate depending on whether you have Azure Hybrid Benefit. If you do have Azure Hybrid Benefit, you can save 40% and transfer your current SQL Server licenses to your vCores. If you only have a standard Microsoft software license, you’ll be paying the standard prices we list below. All below prices are for the East US region and are based on Single Base deployment and use the Standard service tier: vCORE Memory (GB) Pay as you go 1 year reserved capacity 3 year reserved capacity 2 10.2 $0.505/hour $0.398/hour $0.337/hour 4 20.4 $1.009/hour $0.796/hour $0.674/hour 6 30.6 $1.514/hour $1.194/hour $1.011/hour 8 40.8 $2.018/hour $1.592/hour $1.348/hour 10 51 $2.522/hour $1.990/hour $1.685/hour 12 61.2 $3.027/hour $2.388/hour $2.022/hour 14 71.4 $3.531/hour $2.786/hour $2.359/hour 16 81.6 $4.035/hour $3.183/hour $2.696/hour 18 91.8 $4.540/hour $3.581/hour $3.033/hour 20 102 $5.044/hour $3.979/hour $3.370/hour 24 122.4 $6.053/hour $4.775/hour $4.043/hour 32 163.2 $8.070/hour $6.366/hour $5.391/hour 40 204 $10.088/hour $7.958/hour $6.739/hour 80 396 $20.175/hour $15.915/hour $13.477/hour 128 652 $32.280/hour $25.464/hour $21.563/hour   Watch out for these additional provisioned compute prices: The above prices only cover compute charges. Storage prices are billed separately. For example, you’ll see $0.115 per GB/month using the Premium Azure Blob Storage tier. Expect to pay $0.20 per GB/month if you require point-in-time recovery. Expect to pay $0.05 per GB/month if you require long-term retention. Serverless compute Choosing the vCore serverless compute option means you can dynamically pick between 0.5 and 16 vCores and between 2.02 GB and 48 GB of memory. The serverless compute vCores cost $0.5218 per vCore hour and $0.115 per GB/month. You should also be aware of additional charges such as: $0.20 per GB/month for backup storage if you ever require point-in-time restoration $0.05 per GB/month if you require long-term retention Need more info on Azure pricing? Check out our guide to Azure Savings Plan and Azure Functions Pricing. Optimizing Azure SQL pricing   Umbrella’s cloud cost management solution means you don’t have to question your Azure SQL pricing budget because you’ll get 100% end-to-end visibility. Our tools enable you to control your budget and uncover previously unknown charges, all while fully aligning your FinOps, DevOps, and Finance teams. Umbrella’s tool provides complete visibility into Azure SQL pricing while eliminating wasteful spend. Use our ML-driven forecasting tool to properly allocate costs by service, unit, team, app, and more. Save up to 40% on annual cloud spend, and don’t puzzle over Azure pricing again. Instead, you can focus on what matters – providing quality services and meeting quarterly goals. Get proof of concept. Talk to us for more insight into Azure SQL prices and how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools.

Azure Functions is a serverless computer Microsoft Azure service. Its goal is to enable developers to create scalable, cost-optimized, event-driven applications without the hassle of server management.  However, like most Azure cloud-based offerings, the costs of Azure Functions can be muddied by the different pricing models and the factors that can increase (or decrease) your monthly bill. Our guide simplifies things so you can be confident your Azure spend is optimized down to the last dime. In this article: Who benefits from using Azure Functions? Azure Functions pricing models What factors impact Azure Functions pricing How to optimize your Azure Functions price Optimizing Azure Functions pricing Who benefits from using Azure Functions?   Before we get into how to optimize your Azure pricing and spending, let’s break down who should be using Azure Functions, and how you should be benefiting from it.  Azure Functions will appeal to any company working with smaller apps that have events that function independently of other websites.  Since one of the biggest appeals of Azure Functions is the ability to write less code and maintain less infrastructure while saving on costs, this, of course, appeals to most FinOps organizations. You won't have to worry about small menial tasks like order processing, task scheduling, database cleanup, or even IoT data processing, as Azure Functions can help.  Basically, if you're a cloud user who needs help with DevOps and wants to save time and money on application and system development, Azure Functions is for you. Your DevOps team will thank you, and your FinOps team will love you because of how Azure Functions will streamline the most menial tasks – and how much money you can save!  Azure Functions pricing models   There are two pricing models for Azure Functions: Consumption and Premium.  Let’s break down these models so you can decide which works best for you and your business:  Consumption The consumption plan is the most common Azure Function pricing model. A pay-as-you-go model charges users based on function execution time and total number of functions, meaning idle time is free.  Executions cost $0.20 per one million executions. You are charged $0.000016 per GB-s for execution time. Here's an example of how much you might spend if you run a function for 1000 milliseconds and use 300 MB of memory: 0.000016 x 300 would be $0.0048 for each execution. If you execute that function two million times each month, the cost would be 2,000,000 x $0.0048 per month, or $9,600. Premium Suppose you're looking for a payment plan that's better suited toward supporting longer execution time, hybrid connections, virtual network connectivity, generally higher processing power, and better resource reliability and availability. In that case, the Premium plan is for you.  Prices depend on the number of vCPU and memory resources you need. There are four different tiers to pick from:  Plan vCPUs Memory Price Premium V2 4 vCPUs 14 GiB $0.532 per hour Premium V3 8 vCPUs 28 GiB $1.064 per hour Premium V4 16 vCPUs 56 GiB $2.128 per hour Premium V5 32 vCPUs 112 GiB $4.256 per hour   Here's an example of what this pricing looks like when applied: If you pick the Premium V4 tier and use your function app 24 hours a day for 30 days, you'll pay 24 x 30 x $2.128, or $1532.16. Need more info on Azure pricing? Check out our guide to Azure Savings Plan and Azure ML Pricing. What factors impact Azure Functions pricing   Pricing for Azure Functions isn't only determined by a choice of consumption or premium. The following are other factors to monitor when calculating budgets.  Region  Azure charges different prices for different regions of the world. East US is broken down into two regions while West US is broken down into three, so expect multiple price variations for your country, with the divide usually taking place on the East/West.  Outside the US, the UK is divided into two pricing regions: the South and the West. Israel is only Israel Central. India is divided into Central, South, and West India.  Outbound data transfer  If you transfer data from your function app to other non-Azure services (APIs, storage accounts, databases), you'll be charged for the amount of data transferred.  Outbound data transfers are typically charged on a per gigabyte basis, with prices increasing depending on how many zones you must pass through. Prices typically start at $0.035 per GB, and increase as high as $0.16 per GB.  Complexity of function  The more complex the function, the more memory consumption and run time you'll need. In other words, the more complex the function, the higher the cost.  Frequency of execution  The more your function is triggered, the more executions you'll need, impacting your cost. When budgeting, remember how often a function will need to be run.  Function length The time it takes for your function to run will directly impact execution time and memory used. The longer your execution time, the higher the bill.  How to optimize your Azure Functions price   Azure Functions don't have to take up a huge section of your budget. You can optimize your spend so you know not even a single dollar has gone to waste.  Optimize code  Since longer execution times and more complex functions lead to more enormous bills, optimize your code so it's as efficient as possible. This will reduce execution time and the number of executions you need to run, and your finance team will thank you.  Cache  Caching lets you store frequently used data, so you don't need to execute your function each time you need it.  Pick the best plan  Ensure you're using the best plan for your Azure Functions' usage. If you need advanced features like hybrid connections or increased processing power, you're better off going with Premium. But if you need more time to be ready to commit to regular bills and only use Azure Functions occasionally, stick with the Consumption plan.  Automate scaling  Enabling automated scaling means Azure Functions will up or downscale your function app based on usage patterns. This is a great tactic for ensuring you only use the necessary resources.  Monitor your cloud usage Big spikes in Azure Functions can be either a nuisance or a budget breaker. Azure Monitor can help track execution time, memory usage, and the number of executions, but it often doesn’t provide enough control to help fully optimize your budget.  That’s where third-party cloud monitoring tools like Umbrella come into play.  [CTA id="cad4d1a1-3990-4d6b-bb21-ccdcbb6949db"][/CTA] Optimizing Azure Functions pricing   Good news—there is an easier way to never worry about your Azure prices again: Umbrella's cloud cost management solution. Get 100% end-to-end visibility and a tool that allows you complete control over your budget and helps you uncover any unknown charges. Eliminating wasteful spending while uniting your FinOps, DevOps, and Finance teams.  Other Umbrella features include:  Next-Gen Forecasting: Predictive analysis for accurate future cloud budgets and spend. Multicloud Assistance: Comprehensive control and visibility across all of your cloud platforms. AI-Powered Recommendations: Actionable AI-powered support for efficient resource utilization and cost reduction. Real-time Anomaly Detection: Identify unusual cloud cost spikes for proactive management. Personalized Dashboards & Alert: Customizable dashboards and alert system to help monitor your DevOps cost-savings.  Our ML-driven forecasting tool enables you to allocate costs by service, unit, team, app, and more, all while helping you save up to 40% on annual cloud spend. We’ve worked hard to design a tool that lets you focus on what matters, like quarterly goals and annual budget, so you don’t ever have to worry about cloud cost monitoring taking up too much of your teams’ time. Get proof of concept. Talk to us for more insight into Azure Functions prices and how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools.    

Calculating your Azure DevOps budget doesn’t need to make your palms clammy. Consider this your 2024 guide to figuring out all you need about Azure DevOps pricing so nothing sneaks up on your monthly budget. But let's define some Azure pricing terms before we get into the nitty-gritty details.  In this article: What Are Azure DevOps Services? How Does Azure DevOps Pricing Work? What Is an Azure DevOps Server? Optimize Azure DevOps Pricing to Avoid Breaking Your Budget What Are Azure DevOps Services?   Azure DevOps is Microsoft's dev-specific tools and services designed to make it easier for developers, project managers, FinOps, and other contributors to collaborate while building software. It includes the following services:  Azure Boards: Agile tools designed for cross-team collaboration.  Azure Pipeline: CI/CD that can automatically build and test code and is compatible with any platform, cloud, and language.  Azure Repos: Cloud-hosted, unlimited private Git repos that help with application code management. Azure Artifacts: Package management that allows developers to store, manage, and share code and other artifacts. Azure DevOps differs from other Azure pricing models in that DevOps offers more visibility into developmental costs and other optimization opportunities.  However, much like other Azure products, Azure DevOps pricing can get a little tricky since there are so many cost factors. How Does Azure DevOps Pricing Work?   Azure DevOps pricing is entirely based on what features you and your team need. Since everything is so custom, it can be hard to estimate the final bill. Don't worry—we'll guide you through what to expect! Before we dive in:  Good news—Azure DevOps offers a free plan! The bad news? It's limited.  The silver lining lies in scaling up: as your user base grows, the cost per user per month decreases, benefiting larger organizations. Here’s the breakdown of each feature on your Azure DevOps bill. Users You get your first 5 basic users for free. After that, each user costs a certain amount depending on the user's access level.  The tiers:  Basic users: Users can access all features except Azure Test Plan administration, which involves creating test suites, cases, and plans. Five Basic users are included initially, with each extra user incurring a $6 monthly charge. Basic+Test Plan users: These users have access to the Azure Test Plans administration and all the access available to a Basic user. Each Basic+Test Plans user costs $52/month.  Visual Studio subscriber: A Visual Studio subscription includes an Azure DevOps Services license! So, if you’re already receiving your monthly $150 credits, you can consider yourself an honorary Basic DevOps user.  Stakeholder: This access level is free! Whoo! Stakeholders have similar functionality to Basic users but cannot access Azure Repos or certain advanced features on Azure Boards. Azure Active Directory  Azure Active Directory (or AAD) is by no means required but offers much better security support as it forces users to use 2FA/MFA. AAD can be used for limited but free use, but if you want to use Conditional Access Policies, you'll have to start to pay. If you want to beef up your security, it's worth looking into.  Azure Pipelines  Azure Pipelines is your go-to CI/CD configuration and run tool. You can run on any agents while building, deploying, and testing. Pricing is based on the number of parallel (CI/CD) jobs you run.  You start with one free hosted agent, a job, and 1,800 minutes of usage. Going beyond that threshold will cost you $40 per every additional Microsoft-hosted CI/CD. For every additional self-hosted CI/CD parallel job, it's $15 extra. BONUS: If you have Visual Studio Enterprise subscribers, you get one Self Hosted Pipeline for free! Azure Artifacts Azure Artifacts includes 2 GiB free and $2 per GiB after that threshold. If you reach 10 GiB (2 GiB free plus 8 GiB paid), you start to get discounts! Azure Artifacts include sophisticated access controls, integration with Azure Pipelines, support for Maven, npm, and Python packages, upstream sources to protect dependencies on open-sources, and industry-leading NuGet Servers.  Subscription type When you make your first Azure purchase, you'll be prompted to pick an Azure subscription type. Your Azure DevOps prescription can be pay-as-you-go, part of your Enterprise Agreement, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), or another Azure subscription.  Support plans Azure DevOps only offers paid support if you can't find the help you need on the self-service pages. There are three levels, starting at $29/month and increasing as high as $1,000/month. Related content: Read our guide to Azure Functions Pricing and Azure SQL Pricing. [CTA id="cad4d1a1-3990-4d6b-bb21-ccdcbb6949db"][/CTA] What Is an Azure DevOps Server?   Azure DevOps Server is the self-hosted, on-premise solution that Azure DevOps offers.  Prices start at $45 per user and can increase to $499 per user, depending on the additional services and platforms required. You can pick either monthly or yearly billing.  Optimize Azure DevOps Pricing to Avoid Breaking Your Budget   Azure DevOps pricing doesn’t have to send your accounting team into a cold sweat! You can always use Azure’s cost management tools… but you’ll run into this one (big) drawback: Using cost-savings tools provided by the company you’re paying doesn’t incentivize said company to provide the best cost savings.  If you really want to optimize your Azure DevOps spending, you’ll need outside help. With Umbrella’s cost management tools, you can get data down to the hour with retention periods of up to 18 to 24 months – and easy-to-understand dashboards and budget projections. That means you can get all your multicloud and K8 data in one place! Other Umbrella features include:  AI-Powered Support: Provides actionable AI-powered support for efficient resource utilization and cost reduction. Customizable Alerts: Enhances understanding and responsiveness with tailored alerting systems. Next-Level Forecasting: Utilizes predictive analysis for accurate future cloud spending and budgeting. Multicloud Support: Offers comprehensive visibility and control across different cloud platforms. Real-time Anomaly Detection: Quickly identifies unusual spikes in cloud costs for proactive management. Personalized Dashboards: Easy to customize dashboards to help you visualize your DevOps cost-savings.  Umbrella demystifies cloud costs for FinOps organizations and helps you save up to 40% on annual cloud spending. Umbrella’s AI-powered insights mean you barely need to lift a finger to optimize your resource utilization. With features like real-time anomaly detection and customizable alerts, you won’t have to worry about overspending again. Get all the forecasting support you need while building customizable dashboards to track the money you’re saving.  Need proof of concept? Talk to us for more insight into cloud usage, costs, and how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools.  

As with all Microsoft Azure pricing, storage pricing can be confusing. With cloud storage-specific tiers, reservations, time lengths, and other cost considerations, starting monthly budget calculations can be more than intimidating—especially since you'll also want to watch out for any extra provider-specific fees.  We'll break things down so you can easily calculate your Azure storage pricing.  In this article: How does Azure storage pricing work? Azure storage costs overview Azure storage vs AWS and GCP storage costs How to optimize Azure storage costs How does Azure storage pricing work?   Let’s break down how Azure storage prices work before we go into the different cloud storage types.  Azure Storage costs depend on:  Customer region  Number of transactions  Data egress  Type of storage used  Payment plan Azure storage costs overview   Here’s an overview of some of the most common types of Azure storage and the starting prices for each:  Storage Type Description Price Azure Blob Scalable document, image, binary data, or unstructured text storage. Starts at $0.015 per GB per month Azure Files Cloud-based file shares designed for Windows API or REST API. Prices start at $0.0228 per GiB per month Azure Table NoSQL storage designed for web applications’ unstructured and semi-structured data. Prices start at $0.045 per GB per month Azure Queues Messing solution made to store asynchronous processed app messages. Prices start at $0.045 per GB per month Azure Managed Disks Easily scalable virtual machine deployment disks. Prices start at $0.30 per GB per month   Now that you have an overall idea of the different kinds of storage and prices let’s explore each kind in more detail to determine which works best for your company.  Azure Blob storage cost Azure Blob is the ideal service for storing large amounts of unstructured data like videos, backups, and images. Prices fluctuate depending on your chosen data volume, storage tier, and if you decide to select pay-as-you-go or reserved capacity.  Here’s what your Azure Blob storage pricing will look like if you decide to go with the pay-as-you-go model:  Pay-as-you-go Premium Hot Cool Archive First 50 terabyte (TB) / month $0.15 per GB $0.021 per GB $0.015 per GB $0.00099 per GB Next 450 TB / month $0.15 per GB $0.02 per GB $0.015 per GB $0.00099 per GB Over 500 TB / month $0.15 per GB $0.0191 per GB $0.015 per GB $0.00099 per GB   You can save money if you know how much storage capacity you need for the next one or three years by using Azure Storage Reserved Capacity. For one year reserved, you can purchase 100 TB per month for $1,747 for Hot, $1,277 for Cool, and $91 for Archive. For three years reserved, you can buy Hot for $1,406 monthly, Cool for $1,028, and Archive for $84.  Proceed with caution, though. Blobs are subject to an early deletion penalty if they are overwritten, moved, or deleted before the minimum number of days specific to the blob's tier is met. Archive-tier blobs are subject to a 180-day early deletion period, cold-tier blobs are 90 days, and cool-tier blobs are 30 days.  Azure Files storage cost Azure Files is a great choice for cloud-based applications' file-shared services. The price depends on your storage tier and capacity and whether you choose the pay-as-you-go method or the one—or three-year commitment.  Pay-as-you-go pricing tiers look like this:  Data storage Premium Transaction optimized Hot Cool Data at-rest (GiB/month) $0.16 per provisioned GiB* $0.06 per used GiB $0.0287 per used GiB $0.0228 per used GiB Snapshots (GiB/month) $0.136 per used GiB $0.06 per used GiB $0.0287 per used GiB $0.0228 per used GiB Metadata at-rest (GiB/month) Included Included $0.030 per used GiB $0.030 per used GiB   If you can commit longer, the one- and three-year reserved storage capacity tiers for 10 TiB or 100 TiB can save you some money.  Prices for the 10 TiB per month one-year reserved start at $191 for the Cool tier and increase to $1,343 for the Premium tier. Prices for the 100 TiB per month start at $1,821 for Cold and $12,779 for Premium.  The three-year reserved starts at $154 for Cold and $1,081 for Premium for 10 TiB per month and $1,494 for Cold and $10,485 for Premium for 100 TiB per month.  You should also know additional fees for snapshots, meta storage, early file deletion, and read and write transactions.  Azure Tables storage cost  Azure Tables stores semi-structured data using NoSQL. Pricing varies depending on your tier of choice: LRS (locally redundant storage), GRS (geo-redundant storage), read-access geo-redundant (RA-GRS), zone-redundant storage (ZRS), and geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS).  Costs start at $0.045 per GB for LRS and increase as high as $0.1265 per GB for RA-GZRS. Here’s what prices look like for Azure Tables data storage:  Storage Capacity LRS GRS RA-GRS ZRS GZRS RA-GZRS Storage in GB/month $0.045 per GB $0.06 per GB $0.075 per GB $0.0562 per GB $0.1012 per GB $0.1265 per GB   You'll also be charged for every 10,000 operations, with pricing varying depending on whether you are running write, read, scan, list, or batch operations. Prices start at $0.005 for LRS and increase to $0.1725 for RA-GZRS. Here’s the prices you can expect:  Operations LRS GRS RA-GRS ZRS GZRS RA-GZRS 10K Batch Write Operations $0.08 $0.15 $0.15 $0.08 $0.17 $0.17 10K Write Operations $0.03 $0.05 $0.05 $0.03 $0.06 $0.06 10K Read Operations $0.01 $0.01 $0.01 $0.01 $0.01 $0.01 10K Scan Operations $0.09 $0.09 $0.09 $0.09 $0.09 $0.09 10K List Operations $0.09 $0.09 $0.09 $0.09 $0.09 $0.09 10K Delete Operations $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 Azure Queues Azure Queues processes and stores applications’ and services' messages. Pricing models are a little simpler than Azure Blob and Azure Files, with just LRS, GRS, and RA-GRS tiers:  Storage Capacity LRS GRS RA-GRS Storage in GB / month $0.045 per GB $0.06 per GB $0.075 per GB   It should be noted that, as with Azure Tables, there is an additional charge for every 10,000 Class 1 or 2 operations starting at $0.004.  Azure Managed Disks Azure Disks lets you store and manage virtual hard disk data used in VMs. The disk pricing structure can be overwhelming. Costs are influenced by performance, disk type and size, reservation period, and capacity. Actions like snapshots and excessive bursting can increase monthly fees.  There are four disk storage options. Ultra Disk Storage Ultra Disk storage is the next generation SSD, with higher performance and lower latency, consistently high IOPS, and throughput. It is available in different sizes depending on the range of input/output you need.  Ultra disk costs are calculated in terms of monthly or hourly prices for GiB, IOPS, MBps, and vCPU, with prices starting at $0.000164 per hour per GiB and increasing to $4.38 per month per vCPU.  Here’s what ultra disk storage prices look like in full (note that the prices are based on 730 hours/month):  Ultra Disk Configuration Unit Hourly Price Monthly Price Disk Capacity (GiB) GiB $0.00 $0.12 Provisioned IOPS IOPS $0.00 $0.05 Provisioned Throughput (MB/s) MBps $0.00 $0.35 Provisioned vcpu reservation charge vCPU $0.01 $4.38 Premium SSD Premium SSDs are storage-based, high-performance Solid-State Drives that support I/O-heavy workloads with high throughput and low latency. Your total costs depend on size, number of disks, and number of outbound data transfers. Premium SSDs support LRS (locally-redundant storage) and ZRS (zone-redundant storage). There is also a Premium SSD v2 storage option. This option is designed for performance-sensitive workloads with low average red and write latency and high IOPS and throughput.  Here’s a pricing table to get an idea of what the costs for this storage option looks like:  Premium SSD v2 Configuration Unit Monthly Price Hourly Price Disk Capacity GiBs $0.081/GiB $0.00 Provisioned IOPS IOPS $0.0052/provisioned IOPS over 3,000 IOPS $0.000007/provisioned IOPS over 3,000 IOPS Provisioned Throughput MB/s $0.041/provisioned MB/s over 125 MB/s $0.000055/provisioned MB/s over 125 MB/s Provisioned vcpu reservation charge vCPU $0.01 $4.38 Standard SSD & HDD Standard SSDs are a low-cost SSD option that are still optimized for entry-level production and test workloads. They can be used for big data workloads that require high throughput, improving reliability and scalability for your applications and fitting with all corresponding Azure VM sizes. Prices range from $0.30 per 4 GiB to $2,457.60 per 32 TiB monthly. Here’s what the bottom five tiers of Standard SSD pricing looks like:  Disk Size Price per month Max paid transactions per hour Max transaction price per month Max total price per month Max IOPS (Max IOPS w/ bursting) Max throughput (Max throughput w/ bursting) Price per mount per month (Shared Disk) E1 4 GiB $0.45 $7,800.00 $1.14 $1.59 120 (600) 25 MB/second (150 MB/second) $0.03 E2 8 GiB $0.90 $15,400.00 $2.25 $3.15 120 (600) 25 MB/second (150 MB/second) $0.06 E3 16 GiB $1.80 $30,600.00 $4.47 $6.27 120 (600) 25 MB/second (150 MB/second) $0.12 E4 32 GiB $3.60 $61,000.00 $8.91 $12.51 120 (600) 25 MB/second (150 MB/second) $0.26 E6 64 GiB $7.20 $114,400.00 $16.71 $23.91 240 (600) 50 MB/second (150 MB/second) $0.47   On the other hand, Standard HDDs deliver higher latency compared to standard SSDs. Prices start at $1.54 per 32 GiB per month and increase to $953.55 per 32 TiB per month. Need more info on Azure pricing? Check out our guide to Azure Savings Plan and Azure Functions Pricing. Azure storage vs AWS and GCP storage costs   GCP and AWS provide various cloud storage options at differing price tiers. If you're looking for somewhere to store 50 TB for the best price, though, Azure is the option. Before we get into why, let’s break down what AWS and GCP storage options look like.  AWS storage options AWS (Amazon Web Services) offers various storage options designed for everything from hybrid or cloud storage to data migrations.  The following are some common options:  Amazon storage gateway: This hybrid storage option enables you to transfer data from AWS to your on-premise environment. Amazon elastic file system (EFS): This cloud storage service provides scalable, flexible, and encrypted storage for AWS cloud and on-premise applications.  Amazon elastic block storage (EBS): This solution is the best for apps requiring regular data storage.  AWS storage also includes object, file, and block storage.  AWS' most common offering is Amazon Simple Storage Service, or S3, which is a scalable, highly available, and low-cost data solution.  GCP storage options GCP or Google Cloud Platform offers a variety of cloud, block, disk, file, and other kinds of object storage, with a wide range of flexibility, availability, and prices.  For example, if you're working on an app that requires high rates of random IOPS, GCP's SSD or extreme Persistent Disk offerings are likely a good fit.  Other common examples include:  Standard storage: This type of storage offers no minimum storage duration but has the most economical prices.  Nearline storage: This type of storage offers a minimum storage duration of up to 30 days.  Coldline storage: This type of storage offers a 90 day minimum storage duration.  Archive storage: This type of storage offers one of the longest minimum storage durations at 365 days. You can find storage of any object and in any format. GCP makes it easy for you to group projects into similar buckets so organization is simple.  Why go with Azure storage options For example, if you were to purchase Azure Blob Hot storage using the pay-as-you-go tier, 50 TB would cost around $900 a month. In comparison, Google Standard Storage would cost about $1,000 per month, and AWS S3 Standard would cost around $1,150 per month.  Azure pricing isn’t always the most cost-efficient option. For example, if you were looking for block storage, compare AWS' Amazon EBS's price of $0.10 per GB for SDD with Azure's for $0.154 per GB per month.  Remember how there's more than just price to consider when reviewing different cloud providers. For example, Azure Managed Disks offers better backup options and flexibility than Azure EBS. How to optimize Azure storage costs   The only thing more stressful than calculating Azure storage costs is figuring out how to afford those numbers. That’s where Umbrella comes in.  Umbrella demystifies cloud costs for FinOps organizations. You can save up to 40% on annual cloud spend with Umbrella's Cloud Cost Management solution. That, and easy-to-understand dashboards, budget projections, and hourly data with retention periods of up to 18 to 24 months. Keeping track of everything is easy with all of your K8 and cloud data in one place.  Other features include:  Multi-Cloud Support: Get comprehensive control of the cloud across multiple platforms.  Tailored Dashboards and Alerts: Improve your monitoring and reporting tools with customized dashboards and alerts.  Advanced Forecasting: Predictive analysis means predicting future cloud spend, and budgeting is a breeze.  Real-time Anomaly Detection: Quickly identifies unusual spikes in cloud costs for proactive management. AI-Powered Insights: Provides actionable insights for efficient resource utilization and cost reduction. Need a proof of concept? Talk to us for more insight into cloud usage, costs, and how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools. 

The upcoming AWS Summit in New York on July 10, 2024, has us tingling with excitement. This event is a key date in our calendar, bringing together the brightest minds in cloud technology. This year's focus on generative AI and its impact on business has us particularly intrigued. The summit offers over 170 sessions covering a wide range of topics. Getting a firsthand look into the latest developments in cloud computing, especially those related to cost management and AI applications is always powerful. Plus the hands-on labs and workshops will give our team a chance to sharpen their skills and explore new AWS tools. Dr. Matt Wood (AWS), Will McQueen (Bayer Crop Science), and Brad Peterson (Nasdaq) wil be talking about how AWS is making AI more available to everyone. This matters for big companies and small startups alike. We want to learn how new AI tools, developer resources, and basic tech are working together. They'll show us where tech is heading and how AWS is creating safe, growing solutions. It's a good time to be building new things in tech, and we're keen to see why. But it's not all about the tech. The AWS Summit is also a fantastic networking event. We're looking forward to catching up with old friends in the industry and meeting potential new partners and customers. These connections often lead to exciting collaborations and ideas that help us improve our product offering. For Umbrella, this summit is more than just a learning opportunity. It's a chance for us to stay at the forefront of cloud cost management and AI applications. We plan to take what we learn and explore how we can apply it to make our cloud cost management tools even more effective and user-friendly. Our goal is to come away with fresh ideas on how we can better serve our customers in managing their cloud costs. If you're attending the AWS Summit, we'd love to meet up. Stop by booth #1014  to talk about how Umbrella can help you manage your cloud costs more effectively, or just chat about the exciting developments in cloud technology. See you in New York!

If you operate in FinOps, are part of an MSP, or work for an enterprise utilizing the cloud, you're likely familiar with the latest updates on CloudHealth after its acquisition by Broadcom. Since 2018, CloudHealth has been closely tied to the term "acquired," initially by VMware and now by Broadcom, creating an ongoing change cycle. Clients and prospects are understandably cautious when observing CloudHealth as the climate uncertainty and instability grow. This peak of potential disruption to cloud operations provides a unique opportunity for organizations to consider switching to a more reliable and forward-thinking Cloud Cost Optimization solution.  Here’s why now is the perfect time to make the move.   CloudHealth (Broadcom) Umbrella Partner Program Selective, High Requirements Robust, Serves Hundreds of MSPs Pricing Vague, Potential Increases Transparent, Competitive Cloud Support Delays in GCP & Azure Updates Full Visibility Across AWS, GCP, Azure Scalability for MSPs Potential Disruptions Efficient Management and Scaling Cost Management Features Basic Real-time Anomaly Detection, Automated Savings Tracker AI Integration Limited CostGPT for AI-powered Insights Customer Focus Unclear after Acquisition Proven Partner Program, Focuses on Customer Success   Understanding the Change The Broadcom Advantage Partner Program replaced VMware’s partner programs after Broadcom acquired VMware on February 5, 2024. The program will invite only select partners based on specific criteria.  What are the specific criteria? While a lot of uncertainty still remains among CloudHealth partners regarding the program’s invitees and specific requirements, we know a significant one is that partners must demonstrate a minimum of $50,000 per month or $500,000 per year in VMware revenue to qualify for an invitation. This criteria may exclude several MSPs who cater to the SMB market.  Other standards to meet: Performance Metrics: Partners are likely evaluated based on their historical performance, including sales volume, customer satisfaction scores, and overall business growth. Technical Capabilities: Broadcom may assess the technical proficiency of partners, including certifications, technical expertise, and the ability to support and implement Broadcom’s solutions effectively. Market Reach: The partners' geographical coverage and market presence may be considered, ensuring Broadcom’s solutions reach a broad and diverse customer base. Strategic Alignment: Partners that align closely with Broadcom’s strategic goals and priorities, such as focusing on key industries or technology areas, are more likely to be selected. Innovation and Value Add: Partners demonstrating innovation in their service offerings and the ability to add significant value to Broadcom’s solutions may have a competitive edge. Financial Stability: Partners' financial health and stability are critical to sustaining long-term relationships and investments in Broadcom’s technologies. Customer Base: Partners with a substantial and loyal customer base, particularly those with large enterprises or high-value clients, will likely be favored. These new standards are well-suited to Broadcom's goals but fail to address the needs of its cloud clients and customers.  As Allen Skipper, SVP at Expedient, said, “Since the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, there's just been a great deal of confusion and concern in the market. Companies are asking all sorts of questions like, 'How much are costs increasing from VMware? ‘What's this 27 SKUs down to three options that people are talking about? Do we have options to move to other providers or to other hypervisors?" Potential Operational Shifts The acquisition by Broadcom will cause notable internal restructuring at CloudHealth, a change that typically results in service delivery and customer support disturbances. As Broadcom merges CloudHealth into its current operations, inefficiencies and delays are unavoidable. These operational adjustments may pose significant challenges for businesses dependent on smooth and continuous service delivery. How will this affect MSPs? MSPs, solution providers, resellers, and distributors must adapt to this new restructuring. This might mean reevaluating their business strategies, undergoing extra training, and adjusting to Broadcom's new benefits and support structure. Current MSP VMware partners have limited time to adapt to the new program. This can lead to potential disruptions in the service delivery and support provided to their customers. MSPs must also be prepared for delays or inefficiencies during this transitional period. Pricing and Contract Adjustments Unfortunately, Broadcom has been vague about the details of the pricing changes. Many existing VMware partners, particularly smaller providers, have been left in the dark about their future in the Broadcom program.  Exploring Cost-Effective Alternatives As the financial landscape shifts, now is the ideal time for CloudHealth customers to consider more economical solutions.  What to look for?  A transparent and flexible pricing model that can be tailored to fit your organization's unique needs ensures you only pay for what you need, helping to optimize your budget and reduce unnecessary expenditures. Umbrella offers competitive pricing to give MSPs innovative features and powerful ROI. Our latest product upgrade, CostGPT, harnesses advanced AI to offer smart cost management insights for informed financial decisions. We also provide ML technologies for predictive analytics, anomaly detection, and automated actions, empowering proactive cost management and resource optimization.  Delays in the scalability of MSP operations Due to this acquisition, several disruptions could significantly impact the scalability of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) operations. Specifically, delays in processing updates for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Azure assets have been reported. Negative effects of delayed GCP and Azure assets MSPs now struggle to keep client environments current. This lag results in inefficiencies and extended troubleshooting times. Additionally, delayed updates hinder strategic planning, complicating the rollout of new services and the effective scaling of existing ones. Moreover, these disruptions can erode client trust and satisfaction, as they expect timely updates and seamless operation. MSPs' reputations may suffer, leading to potential loss of business.  Exploring Alternative Solutions This CloudHealth Broadcom Acquisition brings hesitation for MSPs as World Wide Technology CEO Jim Kavanaugh expressed:    "We would love to build a strategic partnership with VMware. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that’s what they have planned."   Exploring multiple FinOps tools can enhance your clients' diverse insights and capabilities and give you a tailored approach to their unique needs.  How Umbrella Supports MSPs and Enterprises  We boast seven key strengths that set us apart from the start: Accurate Forecasting and Budgeting: Our data feedback helps fine-tune your model for top accuracy. The autonomous forecast is up 24/7, crunching real-time data streams to give ongoing forecasts for smarter budgeting and cost savings. Cost Visibility and Control: We offer visibility for efficiently understanding multi-cloud and Kubernetes spending, helping you manage costs across all cloud accounts. Savings Recommendations: Over 80  real-time recommendations to monitor and optimize cloud costs and resource usage across AWS, GCP, and Azure. Dive deep into your data to see how your infrastructure is and get immediate savings. Real-time Anomaly Detection and Alerts: Our advanced algorithms identify irregular patterns and potential cost anomalies in real-time, alerting you to deviations from the norm. Automatic Savings Tracker: With automated report saving and tracking capabilities, you can effortlessly track and evaluate the performance of your recommendations. Multi-Tenant, Multi-Billing for MSPs and Enterprises: Consolidate and simplify billing operations for your customers on a unified platform. CostGBT for AI-Powered Cloud Cost Insights: Enhances user experience with contextual insights, cost projections, and answers to complex cloud cost queries with a simple search.   Navigating Your Future with CloudHealth It hasn't even been a year since VMware (CloudHealth) was acquired, and the moves made so far haven't delivered the expected results for customers and partners. These actions involve streamlining product SKUs, discontinuing perpetual licenses, transitioning the top 2,000 VMware customers to direct sales, and implementing layoffs. There shouldn't be an exclusive program that only shows your value to the platform. They should work with you, not profit from you. Umbrella is proud to have a robust Partners Program. We currently serve hundreds of accounts under our partners, including MSPs with over 3000 active users monthly. We’re not just a solution; we want to be a part of your success! Let us help you migrate from CloudHealth and start benefiting from an AI-powered solution that empowers MSPs to manage and scale their existing clients efficiently.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the next significant technological frontier, poised to revolutionize the tech sector, particularly through its massive impact on cloud infrastructures.  By 2024, this transformation is expected to be as widespread as managed Kubernetes services, with an estimated 70% of organizations utilizing managed AI services in their cloud setups. This surge in adoption is fueled by AI's ability to analyze vast amounts of data and extract valuable insights, empowering businesses to optimize operations, enhance decision-making, and drive innovation. Are cloud services becoming more expensive due to AI? The impact of AI on cloud services has become highly significant and will continue to grow every year. While initially, AI might seem to increase cloud service costs due to the rise in demand, cloud providers are actively innovating. They're building optimization tools that can significantly reduce costs for businesses. These innovations will likely keep prices competitive in the long term. What are the benefits of AI in cloud infrastructure? The benefits of AI in cloud infrastructure are: Automation: AI can be used to automate cloud infrastructure. It can automate resource allocation and upscaling or downscaling cloud computing services like computing, storage, networking, and database services based on load and system requirements. Security: AI-powered systems can monitor data patterns and request behavior in real-time to detect issues preemptively. This helps prevent downtime in service or associated costs due to some anomaly or attack on the system.  Optimization: AI can help set up an efficient and optimized cloud infrastructure. These systems can monitor resource utilization and suggest alternate approaches or upscale or downscale a service according to usage patterns. Such predictive recommendations can significantly reduce cloud costs. Maintenance: AI systems can use your cloud infrastructure logs and data to predict potential issues and enable proactive maintenance. This helps schedule maintenance tasks in time and prevents service disruptions. Scalability: AI-driven systems enable cloud infrastructure to scale dynamically in response to changing workloads and traffic. Such capabilities ensure optimal performance even during peak traffic hours and enable cost savings during low-traffic hours. What are the pros of AI-driven cloud services on cloud costs? The pros of AI-driven cloud services on cloud costs are: Cloud Cost Optimization Tools: Several AI-driven tools are being used to optimize cloud spending. Such tools analyze usage patterns and recommend cost optimization measures. One of the leading tools in this space is built by Umbrella, CostGPT. CostGPT is a fully automated state-of-the-art cost optimization AI tool that helps reduce cloud costs significantly by providing personalized analysis and recommendations. This approach differentiates it from most competitors who offer generic recommendations, making it significantly more effective. Increased Efficiency: AI-driven systems can streamline cloud infrastructure and cloud management tasks. This reduces the need for human intervention and improves resource allocation and utilization, eventually leading to increased cost savings. Security Costs Reduction: Cloud infrastructures need to be secure from malicious intent. Companies spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to keep their cloud infrastructure and data safe. AI tools provide enhanced threat detection capabilities, anomaly detection, fraud analysis, etc. These features help reduce a company's overall spend in the security domain. What are the cons of AI-driven cloud services on cloud costs? The cons of AI-driven cloud services on cloud costs are: Potential Cost Increases: The growing use of AI across the industry, especially for resource-intensive tasks, leads to increased demand for compute resources, thus driving the cost upwards for VM instances, GPUs, and TPUs. Data Storage and Processing Costs: AI applications require large amounts of data and datasets to train and test the models, which leads to increased cloud storage and data processing costs. It also involves data transfer costs between cloud environments, networks, and other resources.  Research and Development Costs: If you plan on developing in-house AI models, training large AI models such as LLMs requires huge computational power, which can substantially increase your cloud costs. Deployment Costs: Deploying and running your AI models is also resource-intensive. The models often need much computational power to run and provide inference. Depending on the model's size and request frequency, this incurs additional computing, network, and storage costs. AI systems are having and will continue to have a massive impact on cloud computing. As a result, investment in this technology is becoming increasingly crucial for companies. However, it’s important to invest carefully and understand the value you’re deriving from your investment. This can be achieved by leveraging the right platforms, such as Umbrella. What is CostGPT CostGPT is an AI tool created by Umbrella that provides insights into your cloud cost structure. It is easy to use: All you need to do is type in your question, and CostGPT instantly analyzes and generates insights with clear visualizations of your cloud spending.  CostGPT is compatible with other Umbrella products. It helps you leverage the historical data accumulated with Umbrella to generate ad-hoc forecasts for your cost-related queries. This feature provides a holistic look into your cloud costs.   What are the benefits of using CostGPT? The benefits of using Umbrella’s CostGPT are: Actionable Insights: CostGPT provides personalized, actionable recommendations for your cloud infrastructure that can be used to optimize your cloud spend. Multi-Cloud Support: CostGPT, like the Umbrella platform, supports multiple cloud environments. Therefore, if you use multiple cloud providers like AWS, GCP, Azure, etc., CostGPT has you covered. It provides drilled-down and summarized insights about your system. Proactive Decision Making: CostGPT analyzes usage and data patterns to detect anomalies in the system. This enables you to take any required action proactively and prevent outages, disruptions in service, and unnecessary costs. Real-Time Visualizations: CostGPT, like the rest of the Umbrella platform, provides real-time visualizations of the system that enable you to analyze your cloud costs. These visualizations help monitor the system, understand the data/usage patterns, and plan your cloud cost spending at a higher level.   CostGPT FAQs What is a CostGPT? CostGPT is an AI tool created by Umbrella that provides insights into your cloud cost structure. What are the benefits of using CostGPT? CostGPT provides personalized, actionable recommendations and real-time visualizations that can be used to optimize your cloud cost spend. Where can I learn more about CostGPT? You can learn more about CostGPT and its capabilities by booking a demo.  This will allow you to see the tool and ask questions.  I’m an Umbrella user. How do I get started with CostGBT? As an Umbrella user, you can start using CostGPT right away. It’s a free feature available to all accounts! Here’s how to access the tool: Step 1: Go to the Navigation Panel and click on CostGPT. Step 2: Type in the cloud cost question you’d like answered in the search query. (You can also revisit questions asked previously to CostGPT.) Step 3: Press Enter to submit the question and receive CostGPT’s answer. The answer will be displayed on the screen. Step 4: Click “New Question” in the left panel to ask another question. In the same panel, you can also review your previous questions. Instantly, users are given much-needed insights into cloud costs, now with even greater speed! Conclusion Investing in AI-driven cloud services can be a strategic decision for businesses seeking to leverage the power of AI. While initial costs for specialized hardware, data storage, and managed services may be higher, the long-term benefits outweigh these expenses. AI unlocks functionalities that enhance cloud infrastructure's capabilities, leading to improved decision-making, process automation, and personalized customer experiences. The cloud's scalability allows businesses to adapt their AI investments to changing market dynamics, minimizing risk. AI-driven cloud services can drive innovation, increase efficiency, and unlock new revenue streams, making it a worthwhile investment.