One month has been completed, and my Azure experience cost me $18.80 for a month. So far, I haven't left the machine running outside of when I am using it yet… hence the extremely low cost to date. And of course, it didn't *actually* cost me anything because I was using my MPN credits.
Costs for Month 1
I don't have a fancy screenshot to show my credit status, because once a month passed by, I can no longer view the dashboard-like usage graph. I can download the usage details and it reminds me a lot of the details on a cell phone bill - every single day of usage is listed detailed by type, GUID, region, usage and what units that are in, and a summary of the billing period. This is the summary, the detail is too big and uninteresting to post! It's all in a CSV file to download and view.
The only thing I found interesting in this is it lists my VM as "A1 VM (windows)" when I have an A2.
What's Next?
To reduce my costs (LOL… $19 is too much, says the budget master!) I'm going to create a standard Windows VM and install SQL using my dev & testing keys, instead of using the SQL licensed machines that cost more to run due to the licensing costs by the minute. I'll move over the GP install I already did, using the basic "GP Server Move" methodology, since I don't need to re-upgrade data.
I'll try to make this new machine a domain controller as well, not the recommended approach if it is for production purposes but for a test machine, having one machine to play with that has A/D as well as SQL and GP would make my life easier, and allow me to install MR too.
In my last post, I gave a sneak peek at FRx with GP 2015. Stay tuned later this week for that post, by itself, not in the Azure series!
Previous articles in this series
- Part 1 - how this series started, setting up an Azure subscription, step-by-step how to set up a virtual network and VM
- Part 2 - change of approach, connecting to a VM, copying files, SQL config changes for GP, SQL collation problems when copying in my previous GP data, cost update
- Part 3 - cost update and details on how the charges are derived, performance to date, the Temporary storage, printing & GP upgrade
- Part 4 - cost update, RDP settings & local drives, VM sizes, Free Trial recommendation
