Make it less expensive to run my very small service on Windows Azure.
AdminMike Wickstrand
(Admin, Microsoft Windows Azure)
shared this idea
At PDC 2010 Microsoft announced the Extra Small Instance, which will be priced at $0.05 per compute hour in order to make the process of development, testing and trial easier. This will make it affordable for developers interested in running smaller applications on the platform. A beta of this role will be available before the end of 2010.
Please let us know if this addresses your needs for a more cost effective Azure offering.
129 comments
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JohnHadj
commented
I agree entirely with royleban. The issue is not so much the size of the instance as paying for the instance when it isn't in use.
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JohnHadj
commented
It would make a big difference if lightly used applications were charged by "CPU time" rather than "uptime".
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ruimpcraveiro
commented
It would be nice if there were an "Azure Express", mainly for developers. Otherwise, this will be steeling .net developers, your developer base, some of the cost advantage they've grown accustomed to have over java developers. Check this out: http://code.google.com/appengine/whyappengine.html#cost
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che
commented
What is needed, as others have said, is a web role that is charged by usage, not by up-time. We need a way to front an sql azure DB without spinning up a full-blown compute service. This would parallel what google offers with Google App Engine. That's the missing link here.
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moorster
commented
(3rd Part): The main point: I need a web role that is always available but that I only pay for according to usage. If nobody hits the service in a day then I pay $0. If 100,000 people hit the service then I pay accordingly. I need the same thing with sql azure. I need to create 100 tiny databases that are a couple of megs each. I want to pay per query and/or per MB stored, not a flat $9 per DB per month.
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moorster
commented
(2nd part): If I'm paying $36/month for a compute service that I only use a fraction of, and $9/month for an sql azure db that I also barely utilize then I would go broke.
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moorster
commented
Price is the main reason many small shops don't switch to the cloud. For about $7/month anywhere else I can get many gigs of storage, unlimited sql express databases, and tons of bandwidth.
I am a web developer and I create small sites by the dozen for customers like financial planners, accountants, etc. These sites need the full expressive power of the asp.net/silverlight/sql server, but they get very little traffic. We're talking 100 hits a day or less. If I'm paying $36/month for a compute service that I only use a fraction of, and $9/month for an sql azure db that I also barely utilize then I would go broke.
The main point: I need a web role that is always available but that I only pay for according to usage. If nobody hits the service in a day then I pay $0. If 100,000 people hit the service then I pay accordingly. I need the same thing with sql azure. I need to create 100 tiny databases that are a couple of megs each. I want to pay per query and/or per MB stored, not a flat $9 per DB per month.
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Slav
commented
I agree with ray247 - Azure pricing even at $0.05 per extra small instance per hour works out at about $36 mo which is $432 yr - just paying for one extra small instance - you can get a VPS for that! I think Azure pricing makes sense for bigger established apps with paying users and it's totally flawed for small ideas or devs...
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Joel Mansford
commented
Just ran over our 750hrs (920hrs - just deleted it) allowance and realised that we'd followed best practice and separated our roles on Azure and allowed it to run two instances of each. These currently run on a single VM elsewhere fine. Am currently 50/50 on aborting the project for cost reasons.
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ray247
commented
I think the goal should be having a real setup, 2 instances load balanced for example, and still be really affordable. Right now at $0.05 for 2 or more instances are still expensive, like many have pointed out. You should introduce a even cheaper Micro Instance, and let us upgrade later on when there is a need, but knowing what we have had already work for multiple instances.
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Ronny Hansen commented
If you need a "background task" to run in a WebRole this can be done - and by doing this you can get away with no WorkerRole.
Check out this for more information: http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Cloud+Cover/Cloud-Cover-Episode-27-Combining-Roles-and-Using-Scratch-Disk
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Niall Hannon
commented
Based on MS best practice advice we are required to run two instances of a web role to ensure uptime. This doubles the cost of the advertised compute pricing.
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George Bell
commented
I have a role that only processes something once a day, for 20 minutes....yet I got charged for it aall 24 hours - this is ridiculous...make it possible to only run a role during certain times...that way you can provision them for a short amount of time each day and we don't get charged as much for doing nothing...
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George Bell
commented
I have a role that only processes something once a day, for 20 minutes....yet I got charged for it running all 24 hours - this is ridiculous...make it possible to only run a role during certain times...that way you can provision them for a short amount of time each day and we don't get charged as much for doing nothing...
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George Bell
commented
I have a role that only processes something once a day, for 20 minutes....yet I got charged for it running all 24 hours - this is ridiculous...make it possible to only run a role during certain times...that way you can provision them for a short amount of time each day and we don't get charged as much for doing nothing...
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George Bell
commented
I have a role that only processes something once a day, for 20 minutes....yet I got charged for it running all 24 hours - this is ridiculous...make it possible to only run a role during certain times...that way you can provision them for a short amount of time each day and we don't get charged as much for doing nothing...
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jinishans commented
Hi Haris
I think the BizSpark stuff is really good, 8 months + 8 months. It'll be useful for small startups.
The issue here is, time is running out, this month on month 25 hrs is Horrible. I've registered for that, deployed a Hello World app, forgot to switch off, Gosh, I got a $60-70 bill a month back. For what, for just deploying my Hello World Azure app, cos it's running, NO Activity.
Man, this is what we're asking to go. Remove that 25hrs, make it 750 hrs (min. 720 hrs / month) FREE for developers, with 1 SQL Server DB, Allow Multiple web apps in 1 webrole. Allow Developers to learn Azure.
We can't spend whole day / month to learn this. Probably 10-20 hrs / month, in our tight work schedule.
Common folks, see AWS, it's already started, I've registered there though being a .NET guy since .NET 1.0 was in Alpha, jumped in 2001/02 from J2EE, now if Azure is not going to be FREE for Developers, we're forced to go back to Java with Amazon AWS Free program, and propose such thing in our next projects to our customers, no other way. Without we learning/trying out Azure, No one, I'm telling, No one is going to recommend/plan for their next project.
Bring it On, Now !
Regards
jinishans -
shenoy.roopesh
commented
This is good stuff - at least for my test servers I can use these instead of Small instance and save some money.
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Paul Deen
commented
I'm not really sure $40.00 a month is excessive. I wouldn't expect it for free. For me, I'd be happy to pay a slight premium to run on azure, because you have the ability to simply scale out at will, so for us, we have peak times of month, when we'd want to scale, and times when we'd want to run a smaller proposition. This is a good balance now I think. Next... they need to think about SQL Azure!
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Richard commented
That's still $40.00 a month. For that I can get a virtual server of my own. MSFT needs to offer a way to run a web site for little (< $10 / month, or free.) that way developers can get into Azure for low cost and then if all goes well, the site become popular and you simply scale up the availability. GAE does this very well with their free account.
