Using Azure? Price increase.

kripstoe

kripstoe

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Got this email. Quite disappointed why they would increase it by so much.

Anybody else using Azure?

Dear Customer,
Microsoft will adjust prices for Windows Azure in some markets.
Microsoft periodically assesses the impact of its local pricing to ensure there is a reasonable alignment with the needs of customers, partners, and the marketplace, and may make changes in response to its assessment and feedback.

Effective July 1, 2013, local prices for Windows Azure in South Africa will increase by approximately 20 percent, and local prices in Argentina will increase by 15 percent to more closely align with prices in most markets.

If you are subscribed to one of our 6-month or 12-month plans, you have price protection and will receive the better of the price at the beginning of your subscription term or the current market price.

If you have questions, please contact us.

Thank you,

Windows Azure Team
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kripstoe said:
Got this email. Quite disappointed why they would increase it by so much.

Anybody else using Azure?
Click to expand...

This is common MS tactics, gets a few costumers to rely on Azure for their cloud solutions and then push the price up. Then you are forced to pay it due to it being to big a mission or to cost intensive to move away.

MS can push the price up as they want and there is no protection unless you are a MS subscriber where you will only get raped after your current agreement runs out.

If you want to go cloud look at openstack and you wont have these problems down the line.
 
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Azure is one of the best products that Microsoft has going at the moment. This is not terribly surprising.
 
This will mean that they will be more expensive than Rackspace...

I have clients on both, nobody is happy with the increase.
 
If you make the mistake of giving the only key to your castle to a third party, you shouldn't be surprised when they start helping themselves to the contents of your fridge.
 
BobsLawnService said:
If you make the mistake of giving the only key to your castle to a third party, you shouldn't be surprised when they start helping themselves to the contents of your fridge.
Click to expand...

Oh hey... looks like I'm gonna be rehaunting my old graves soon ;)
 
how does the new prices compare with AWS?
 
BobsLawnService said:
If you make the mistake of giving the only key to your castle to a third party, you shouldn't be surprised when they start helping themselves to the contents of your fridge.
Click to expand...

+1 Very well said, I personally run my own openstack solution so that I have full control and not beg a 3rd party to fix stuff.
 
kripstoe said:
Got this email. Quite disappointed why they would increase it by so much.

Anybody else using Azure?
Click to expand...

Oh btw the reason they not doing this in the EU or US is because they will have a class action lawsuit for a 20% increase of prices and all the clients will leave.
 
After that abortion called .NET there was no way we would risk using Microsoft cloud services.
 
Dumb question but can't you pay them with paypal and tell them u live in the US?
 
Question, does Azure charge in Rand or in US$ for users from South Africa?
 
gkm said:
Question, does Azure charge in Rand or in US$ for users from South Africa?
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Rands for me. You have to register etc and if I remember correctly you get an automated phone call from MS to verify something.
 
cerebus said:
Azure is one of the best products that Microsoft has going at the moment. This is not terribly surprising.
Click to expand...

Correct, and it is actually a really nice service. Even Mark Shuttleworth made a comment about this sometime during this week with the Ubuntu Bug #1 comment.
 
biometrics said:
After that abortion called .NET there was no way we would risk using Microsoft cloud services.
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Any platform is an abortion if you don't have the skills. First sign of management incompetence: Blame the technology :)
 
BobsLawnService said:
If you make the mistake of giving the only key to your castle to a third party, you shouldn't be surprised when they start helping themselves to the contents of your fridge.
Click to expand...
Do you even work in IT?

Azure, is for people playing catch up. Even so, its more secure and more stable and more safe than any server you could setup and admin.

Do you know how many "castle"s Ive seen stolen, broken and destroyed in my life time?

However, there are still fossils that program in COBOL so I imagine there will still be IT fossils that dont understand the cloud.
 
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Further notice:

Dear Customer,

Today we released new enhancements for Windows Azure Infrastructure Services and Web Sites, and added new BizTalk Services.
Infrastructure Services: new options and new features

True cloud economics with per-minute billing
Starting June 3, 2013, Windows Azure Virtual Machines, web roles, and worker roles are billed by the minute rather than by the hour. Microsoft SQL Server and BizTalk Server running in Virtual Machines are also billed by the minute. You will pay for what you use instead of rounding up to the nearest hour.

Additional security option for Virtual Machines: public endpoint access control lists
We added a security option so that you can control inbound traffic to your virtual machines. Define how traffic from outside of your corporate firewall communicates with your Virtual Machine public endpoints through PowerShell and soon at the management portal. Public Endpoint ACLs put additional security controls at your fingertips. You are in charge!

More options for building your security-enabled private connection to Windows Azure
By using Windows Azure Virtual Network, you can retain select data and apps on-premises and connect them to your cloud through a security-enabled private connection. Starting June 3, you have even more device options for setting up your site-to-site connection. Virtual Network now supports integration with WatchGuard, F5, and Citrix virtual private network (VPN) devices, in addition to Cisco and Juniper.

If you prefer a software-based VPN solution, recent enhancements to site-to-site connectivity enable you to use Windows Server 2012 Routing and Remote Access Server (RRAS) as an on-premises VPN server. Windows Azure gives you the flexibility to use either software-based or hardware-based VPN solutions.
Preview of SSL for sites hosted on Windows Azure Web Sites Reserved instances with custom domain names
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) helps you secure traffic to your sites with custom domain names hosted on Windows Azure Web Sites.

What is SSL?
SSL is a key piece of technology for companies that want to do business on the web and is used to help secure traffic between the website and the browser. We are announcing support for SNI-based and IP-based SSL certificates for Web Sites Reserved instances. SNI is supported by most modern browsers in use today. SNI-based SSL allows websites without a dedicated IP address, which is a key feature for websites hosted in cloud environments. IP-based SSL works in all browsers. For more information on SSL, please refer to the Web Sites Services webpage.

What does SSL cost?
Refer to the table below for SNI-based and IP-based SSL preview and general availability pricing. For additional pricing information, please see the Pricing Details webpage.

PRICING REMOVED

How to enable and use SSL
1. Purchase an SSL certificate from a certificate authority or locate an existing SSL certificate for your website.
2. Navigate to the Windows Azure Management Portal.
3. In the Scale Tab, scale your website to reserved mode (if you have not already done so).
4. In the Configure tab, Click “Manage Domains” and set up your custom domain name.
5. In the Configure tab upload the SSL certificate.
6. Then, explicitly enable SSL.

BizTalk Services preview: integrate the cloud and the enterprise
By using Windows Azure BizTalk Services, you can integrate your Windows Azure services, software as a service, and on-premises applications easily though a configuration-driven experience.

BizTalk Services helps you manage your trading partners with rich Electronic Data Interchange capabilities. You can connect any cloud endpoint to on-premises line-of-business systems using ready-to-go adapters for SAP, Oracle, SQL Server, and PeopleSoft. You can do all this in an on-demand, security-enabled, and dedicated environment.

With the drag-and-drop interface, you can build integration message flows to receive messages from various sources (such as HTTP, FTP, SFTP, and REST), validate and transform them to destination formats, and route the messages to endpoints in the cloud or on-premises.

How to get started
1. In the Windows Azure Management Portal, in the bottom left corner, click NEW.
2. Under APP SERVICES, click BIZTALK SERVICE.
3. Click CUSTOM CREATE, and then follow the steps.

Windows Azure BizTalk Services is available in Developer, Basic, Standard, and Premium offerings. Refer to the table below for BizTalk Services preview and general availability pricing. For additional pricing information, please see the Pricing Details webpage.

PRICING REMOVED

Thank you,

Windows Azure Team
Click to expand...

My only concern is the change in pricing and when it will happen again; also that Azure is not hosted locally as certain SLA state that everything should be in SA, not that easy task anymore.

I do appreciate the enhanced VPN integration.

Many companies are now moving in the Azure/365 direction.

What is the general opinion to host all AD’s in Azure, eliminating on-premises server hardware?

We tend to move towards Hybrid solutions, than completely cloud-based.
 
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