Azure pricing

Alex_Chow · 2014-03-11

I went on the Azure Pricing calculator and configured a medium Virtual Server with a medium SQL Server Standard edition, and the pricing per month came out to $677.04 / month?

This does not include any additional applications like NAV or O365 or the add-ons.

To add all that stuff in, I'm guessing the client would be looking at least $1500 - $2000 a month. That's like purchasing a new set of NAV every 1-3 years.

Am I missing something here??

Check it out:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/prici ... nario=full

Marije_Brummel · 2014-03-11

SQL Server is already included in NAV pricing. Also you should see if you can run multiple customers on the same VM.

Alex_Chow · 2014-03-11

Mark Brummel wrote:

SQL Server is already included in NAV pricing. Also you should see if you can run multiple customers on the same VM.

I don't understand.

So this means that I would create a VM, and have all of my customers running in that same VM? How would O365 work? And how would NAV licensing work?

Where do I find pricing on this kind of stuff?

bbrown · 2014-03-11

This is the first I've heard that SQL is included? I got the following from the "SPLA Licensig Guide". Which would seem to contridicate that.

Licenses for additional software that may be required for the solution (such as Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint Server) and their corresponding access licenses are not included with the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 or the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 licenses

Marije_Brummel · 2014-03-12

A NAV license should have something called SQL Server users or CALs. From my understanding this means you can run NAV on SQL.

Only NAV, no other access and no SSAS.

Alex, there should be how-do documents and video's on how to connect an O365 subscription to a Service Tier running on Azure. You can have different o365 subscriptions connected to different service tiers on the same VM. The customers do not have access to the VM and do not see the other customers database.

This is the whole concept of reducing TCO in the cloud.

Alex_Chow · 2014-03-12

So assuming I have one customer that wants to go into Windows Azure, are they spending $600/month or not?

If I have 10 different client companies that wants to use NAV in Azure, are they using my subscription and share that $600/month?

Or does each one of them have to sign up for their own Azure and pay $600/month?

I'm having trouble seeing the "reducing the TCO" portion.

bbrown · 2014-03-12

I've been researching the cloud for a couple different uses. In terms of customers, I'm seeing the cloud is much more geared to the client that wants to keep pace with technology. Possibly without the cost of maintaining the resources internally. Both in terms of physical systems and staff ability and capacity. The model here is a customer that installs NAV with little or no customization and upgrades every version. That includes systems. The lifespan I’m seeing is 24 to 30 months.

This does not seem to fit those clients that sit on versions for a number of years, or make extensive modifications. Again, these are just my observations.

Alex_Chow · 2014-03-12

Yes, that's more of a conceptual way of looking at it.

What I'm after is the pricing aspects of it. Because that's what determines the reality of how customers will view this Azure with Cloud.

So back to my original question, is it 1 VM for multiple customers? If so, this does make TCO sense.

If it's multiple VM for multiple customers, then paying $600/month for Azure and SQL alone does not make sense.

jglathe · 2014-03-12

Alex Chow wrote:

If it's multiple VM for multiple customers, then paying $600/month for Azure and SQL alone does not make sense.

I'm not so sure about using one VM for multiple clients. This sounds like asking for trouble... what about user accounts/rights management and overall security (assuming anything in a public cloud can be made secure, which is impossible)? And if that VM goes down, multiple customers go down? Doesn't sound like a good plan to me. I mean, we *regularly* reboot the VM with the NST because the thing has a memory leak or something similar, and if you run it for more than two days uptime strange things start happening. Restarting the NST and the Web Service doesnt fix it. Ours is NAV2009R2 RTM, but I would at least assume there are similar problems with the current releases. If you have one VM for multiple customers, how can this work reliably? What about concurrency in one VM, workload allocation per customer and the like?

with best regards

Jens

kriki · 2014-03-13

jglathe wrote:

Restarting the NST and the Web Service doesnt fix it. Ours is NAV2009R2 RTM, but I would at least assume there are similar problems with the current releases.

Seems like you need to use a newer build. Check out partner source to find which build can fix it.

Marije_Brummel · 2014-03-13

The whole concept of cloud and azure is that the partner (Alex in this case) takes the 600$/Month and his 10 customers share it. He should sell it for 120$ a month to his customers. (Just an example).

Azure does not go down, or at least not unexpected. I have never experienced that and I am running on Azure now for over a year. If it goes down you get a nice email announcing the downtime.

NAV2013R2 is for what I know stable and if there are memory leaks (of which I have not heard) Microsoft should and will fix it.

The 10 customers can have their own database and their own logins. They will never ever see each others databases and data. This is one of the reasons why you cannot get a list of service tiers that run on a box. You don't want your customers to see what other companies run on the same subscription.

Good luck. 8)

jglathe · 2014-03-13

Hi Alain,

kriki wrote:

Seems like you need to use a newer build. Check out partner source to find which build can fix it.

you're right. I have looked it up and tested it with a newer build quite a while ago, but we didn't get around deploying it yet. However, introducing new/other problems with newer builds is not unheard of, therefore we are reluctant to update to newer builds... especially with NAV209R2.

with best regards

Jens

Alex_Chow · 2014-03-13

Mark Brummel wrote:

The whole concept of cloud and azure is that the partner (Alex in this case) takes the 600$/Month and his 10 customers share it. He should sell it for 120$ a month to his customers. (Just an example).

Azure does not go down, or at least not unexpected. I have never experienced that and I am running on Azure now for over a year. If it goes down you get a nice email announcing the downtime.

NAV2013R2 is for what I know stable and if there are memory leaks (of which I have not heard) Microsoft should and will fix it.

The 10 customers can have their own database and their own logins. They will never ever see each others databases and data. This is one of the reasons why you cannot get a list of service tiers that run on a box. You don't want your customers to see what other companies run on the same subscription.

Good luck. 8)

This sounds good. Is there a white paper on how to deploy this? Or did you get this information from your secret MVP meetings?

How do we license this since we're controlling the VM with NAV on it? Honor system?

What about add-ons and our own IP (intellectual property)? It looks like you can only create the image from their library.

Alex_Chow · 2014-03-13

jglathe wrote:

Hi Alain,

kriki wrote:

Seems like you need to use a newer build. Check out partner source to find which build can fix it.

you're right. I have looked it up and tested it with a newer build quite a while ago, but we didn't get around deploying it yet. However, introducing new/other problems with newer builds is not unheard of, therefore we are reluctant to update to newer builds... especially with NAV209R2.

with best regards

Jens

I'm approaching this assuming Microsoft gets their act together and fixes all of the problems.

bbrown · 2014-03-13

Alex Chow wrote:

....
I'm approaching this assuming Microsoft gets their act together and fixes all of the problems.

](*,)

kriki · 2014-03-14

Mark Brummel wrote:

Azure does not go down, or at least not unexpected. I have never experienced that and I am running on Azure now for over a year. If it goes down you get a nice email announcing the downtime.

I confirm it. I am using the Azure VM since July 2012, while it was still in beta. While it was in beta, sometimes I found that my VM had been restarted and also moved to another host.
Since Azure VM is in RTM, I haven't had that anymore. And like Mark says: they send emails announcing the downtime (they get even close to spamming with reminders about the downtime!). They send the emails a few weeks before the downtime, so you have all the time to plan for it.

Alex_Chow · 2014-03-17

What do you use Azure for? Just testing or is it for your internal production system?

Marije_Brummel · 2014-03-17

My own internal invoicing. In combination with the new miniapp it's brilliant.

tinoruijs · 2014-03-18

Mark Brummel wrote:

My own internal invoicing. In combination with the new miniapp it's brilliant.

I also use it for my own administration.
Miniapp's not yet, but probably will in the near future. Nice functionality.

Alex_Chow · 2014-03-18

Mark Brummel wrote:

My own internal invoicing. In combination with the new miniapp it's brilliant.

So this means that if you want an VM for your clients, you would need another account?

How did you setup the VM for your own company? Did you use the VM image they provided? Any instructions you used?

David_Singleton · 2014-03-24

Mark Brummel wrote:

My own internal invoicing. In combination with the new miniapp it's brilliant.

Good to know someone is doing this, as I am planning to do the same. Anything I need to look out for?

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