Domain Controller in Azure (ExpressRoute) pricing

Bojan Zivkovic 526

Hi, I'd like to know approximate price of deploying Domain Controller in Azure with ExpressRoute used to connect on-premises network and Azure network.

Silvia Wibowo 5,286 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2025-02-28T00:54:05.63+00:00
Hi @Bojan Zivkovic , I understand you're asking about the price of deploying Domain Controller in Azure with ExpressRoute connection.

There are a few components for approximate pricing:

VM for the Domain Controller. VM Pricing - I would suggest D series (e.g. Dasv6-series) or F series (e.g. Fsv2-series). It has several options regarding Windows license (AHB/Azure Hybrid Benefit or not) and pricing type (Pay-as-you-go, Reserved Instance, or Savings Plan). The recommendation for AD DS is to deploy at least 2 Azure VMs in different Availability Zone. For more information about sizing AD DS domain controllers, see Capacity Planning for Active Directory Domain Services.

Disk to attach to the VM: OS disk (min 32GB) and data disk (min 20GB). Managed Disk Pricing - if Premium SSD v2 is available in the region, use that (no additional IOPS/throughput is required). Otherwise, use Premium SSD. As the 2 VMs are spread into different Availability Zones, the disk can use LRS (Locally Redundant Storage).

ExpressRoute circuit. Azure ExpressRoute pricing (Express Route circuit tab).

ExpressRoute gateway. Azure ExpressRoute pricing (Express Route Gateway tab) - I'd suggest using Zone-Redundant SKU like ErGw1AZ.

Data transfer out from Azure to on-premises. Azure ExpressRoute pricing (Outbound Data Transfer pricing). For data transfers (except CDN), the following regions correspond to Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3: Zone 1 — North America and Europe - Canada Central, Canada East, Central US, East US, East US 2, France Central, France South, Germany North, Germany West Central, Italy North, Mexico Central, North Central US, North Europe, Norway East, Norway West, Poland Central, Spain Central, South Central US, Sweden Central, Sweden South, Switzerland North, Switzerland West, UK South, UK West, West Central US, West Europe, West US, West US 2, West US 3; Zone 2 — Asia and Oceana - Australia Central, Australia Central 2, Australia East, Australia Southeast, Central India, East Asia, Japan East, Japan West, Korea Central, Korea South, Qatar Central, Southeast Asia, South India, West India; Zone 3 — South America and Middle East - Brazil South, Israel Central, South Africa North, South Africa West, UAE Central, UAE North.

If you find it very complicated, please let me know answers for the following questions and I can help you calculate the approximate price:

What Azure region do you plan to use?

Where's your on-premises location?

What ExpressRoute circuit bandwidth do you estimate you'd need? This depends whether you'll use the ExpressRoute circuit for other purpose like database replication, storage replication, etc.

Based on Capacity Planning for Active Directory Domain Services, how many vCPU and RAM do you think you need? Or if you have existing Domain Controller server in your on-premises, what's the spec (CPU, RAM, disk)?

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Domain Controller in Azure (ExpressRoute) pricing

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