Windows Azure Price Slashing!
Just got some great news regarding updates to the pricing structure for Windows Azure that not only makes Azure a tad more affordable and also less confusing from a billing perspective!
First of all the price of an extra-small compute instance has been reduced by 20% – ok so it’s 4 cents now versus 5 cents per hour, but we all know Ben Franklin’s take on the subject.
While saving money is awesome, from my perspective the other part of the announcement is even better: small and extra-small compute hours are now interchangeable. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s been confusing to look at the various on-boarding offers (MSDN benefits, Windows Azure Pass, Introductory offer) and figure out what you’re really getting. Now, it’s simple math:
It gets better: to ease the migration to this new interchangeable model, you can get additional benefits for the month of August and September via the Introductory Offer/Platform Trial. It’s covered in this blog post, and I’ve shamelessly lifted the table comparing the benefits you’d get now versus after October 1st:
| Prior to October 1 | Beginning on October 1 | ||||
| Offer | Extra Small | Small | Extra Small | Small | Extra Small Equivalent |
| 750 | 750 | - | 750 | 2,250 | |
| 750 | 25 | - | 375 | 1,125 | |
| 750 | - | - | 375 | 1,125 | |
| 1,500 | - | - | 750 | 2,250 | |
| - | 1,500 | - | 1,500 | 4,500 | |
There will also be some streamlining of bandwidth charge schedules as well in place on October 1st, including interchangeability of CDN transfers with regular data transfer.