Course 3 –  Microsoft Azure Services and Lifecycles

Module 4: Managing Costs & SLA Service Cycles

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TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION – Managing Costs & SLA Service Cycles

In this module, you will delve into the various factors that influence cloud costs and explore the tools available to help estimate and manage your cloud expenses effectively. Additionally, you will gain insights into service-level agreements (SLAs) in Microsoft Azure, understanding how these agreements can impact your application design decisions.

Furthermore, you will learn how to access preview services and consider how they can influence your planning process. By the end of the module, you will be equipped with the knowledge to optimize your cloud spending and make informed decisions regarding application design and service utilization.

Learning Objectives

  • Describe the service lifecycle in Azure, including how to access new capabilities that are coming to Azure.
  • Combine SLAs to compute a composite SLA.
  • Identify factors, such as the service tier you choose, that can affect an SLA.
  • Describe what an SLA is and why SLAs are important.
  • Define some of the major factors that affect total cost, and apply recommended practices to minimize cost.
  • Use the Pricing calculator to estimate the monthly cost of running your cloud workloads.
  • Describe the different ways you can purchase Azure products and services.
  • Use the Total Cost of Ownership Calculator to compare your current datacenter costs to running the same workloads on Azure.

KNOWLEDGE CHECK 1

1. Your company is planning on migrating to Azure cloud services. However, before this happens management requires some comparisons of the costs involved in using cloud services as opposed to an on-premises solution. What would be the first step you could take to provide this comparison information?

  • Run the Total Cost of ownership Calculator. (CORRECT)
  • Setup some resources in Azure as this is a free service.
  • Assume that the cost of running workloads on Azure are similar as running workloads on-premises.

Correct: Running the Total Cost of Ownership Calculator is a great first step because it can provide an accurate comparison of running workloads in the datacenter versus on Azure and is certified by an independent research company.

2. You work for a large manufacturing company and are planning on moving to Azure cloud services. You want to avail of the best pricing Microsoft has to offer on their Azure services. Which Azure service should you purchase?

  • Buy Directly from the web
  • Through a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)
  • An Enterprise agreement (CORRECT)

Correct: Larger customers (known as Enterprise customers) can sign an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft that commits them to spend a predetermined amount on Azure services over a period of 3 years, which is typically paid annually. As an Enterprise Agreement customer, you will receive the best, customized pricing based on the kinds and amounts of services you plan on using.

3. Your company’s development team create virtual machines for testing on a regular basis. These test machines are only used during certain times. In your opinion what is the most efficient way to save costs on virtual machines when they are not in use?

  • Use virtual machines that are only chargeable when accessed remotely.
  • Delete the virtual machines when they are not in use because once they are deleted, they will not incur any charges.
  • Deallocate the virtual machines when they are not in use. (CORRECT)

Correct: When you deallocate virtual machines, the associated hard disks and data are kept in Azure. But you don’t pay for CPU or network consumption, which can help save costs.

4. True or False?

Azure Advisor helps you identify unused or under-utilized resources and can recommend unused resources that you can remove.

  • True (CORRECT)
  • False

Correct: Azure Advisor identifies unused or under-utilized resources and recommends unused resources that you can remove. This helps you configure your resources to match your actual workload.

5. If you have a free trial subscription to Azure and you reach your credit limit during the trial period, what will happen to your resources?

  • You can carry on and access existing resources, but you will not be able to create new resources.
  • Your existing Azure resources are removed from production and your Azure virtual machines are stopped and deallocated. (CORRECT)
  • The oldest resources will be deleted once the credit limit has been reached allowing you to create new resources.

Correct: When you spend all the credit included with your Azure free account, Azure resources that you deployed are removed from production and your Azure virtual machines are stopped and deallocated. The data in your storage accounts are available as read-only. At this point, you can upgrade your subscription to a pay-as-you-go subscription.

KNOWLEDGE CHECK 2

1. True or False?

A service-level agreement (SLA) is a formal agreement between a service company and the customer. On Azure, this agreement defines the performance standards that Microsoft commits to for you, the customer. However, in order to view an SLA, you must have an Azure Subscription.

  • True
  • False (CORRECT)

Correct: You don’t need an Azure subscription to review service SLAs. You can access SLAs from the Service Level Agreements page on azure.microsoft.com.

2. Downtime refers to the time duration that the service is unavailable, how much cumulative downtime per year will an SLA percentage of 99.95 give?

  • 3.65 days
  • 52.56 minutes 
  • 8.76 hours
  • 4.38 hours (CORRECT)

Correct: An SLA percentage of 99.95 will give an annual cumulative downtime of 4.38 hours.

3. Azure cloud services continue to release new features. Prior to release these new services go through various stages of testing such as pre-release and Beta. Which of the following will allow all Azure customers an opportunity to test the beta and other pre-release features?

  • General availability
  • Public Preview (CORRECT)
  • Private Preview

Correct: During this phase, all customers with the proper Azure AD license are invited to evaluate the new feature.

4. Which of the following define performance targets such as uptime?

  • Usage Meters
  • Service Level Agreements (CORRECT)
  • Support plans

Correct: Service Level Agreements or SLAs define performance targets for an Azure product or service.

TEST PREP

1. Following your company’s migration to Azure, you have discovered that some of your development teams are creating resources for test purposes without considering the costs involved. You need to implement restrictions on the number and type of resources that they can create simultaneously. 

What solution can you implement to help with this issue?

  • You cannot limit resource creation.
  • Create a subscription for the development team and apply spending limits to that subscription. (CORRECT)
  • Assign a company budget to the development team as part of their overall annual budget.

Correct: If you exceed your spending limit for a subscription, active resources are deallocated. You can then decide whether to increase your limit or provision fewer resources.

2. In your opinion is the following statement correct or incorrect? 

Select Yes if you believe it to be correct and No if you believe it to be incorrect.

Incoming and outgoing network traffic to and from a VM in chargeable in Azure.

  • A: Yes (CORRECT)
  • No 

Correct: When you provision a resource, Azure creates meters to track usage of that resource. Azure uses these meters to generate a usage record that is later used to help calculate your bill. The meters can track overall CPU time or incoming (ingress) and outgoing (egress) network traffic to the VM.

3. In your opinion is the following statement correct or incorrect?

Select Yes if you believe it to be correct and No if you believe it to be Incorrect.

Azure Reservations offer discounted prices on certain Azure services and to receive these discounts you must pay in advance.

  • Yes (Correct) (CORRECT)
  • No (Incorrect)

Correct: Azure Reservations offers discounted prices on certain Azure services. Azure Reservations can save you up to 72% as compared to pay-as-you-go prices. To receive a discount, you reserve services and resources by paying in advance.

4. Downtime refers to the time duration that the service is unavailable, how much cumulative downtime per year will an SLA percentage of 99.99 give?

  • 4.38 hours
  • 8.76 hours
  • 3.65 days
  • 52.56 minutes (CORRECT)

Correct: An SLA percentage of 99.99 will give an annual cumulative downtime of 52.56 minutes.

5. Azure cloud services continue to release new features. Prior to release, these new services go through various stages of testing such as pre-release and Beta. Which of the following will receive support but Service Level Agreements will not apply?

  • Public Preview (CORRECT)
  • Private Preview
  • General availability

Correct: During this phase all customer with the proper Azure AD license are invited to evaluate the new feature. Microsoft Customer Support Services will supply support services during this phase, but normal service level agreements do not apply

6. Which of the following steps do you need to take to create a report with the TCO Calculator? 

Check all that apply

  • Subscribe to Azure
  • Define your workloads (CORRECT)
  • Adjust assumptions (CORRECT)
  • View the report (CORRECT)

Correct: Define your workloads is step 1, out of three, when working with the TCO Calculator.

Correct: Adjust assumptions is step 2, out of three, when working with the TCO Calculator.

Correct: View the report is step 3, out of three, when working with the TCO Calculator.

7. If your organization subscribes to Microsoft Visual Studio, which type of Azure subscription may offer credits for your Azure account and reduced rates on Azure services?

  • Free trial
  • Member offers (CORRECT)
  • Pay-as-you-go

Correct: Your existing membership to certain Microsoft products and services might provide you with credits for your Azure account and reduced rates on Azure services. Visual Studio subscribers may be eligible for credits for your Azure account and reduced rates on Azure services.

8. Which of the factors affect cost? 

Select all that apply.

  • Resource usage (CORRECT)
  • Azure Marketplace (CORRECT)
  • Resource type (CORRECT)
  • Azure subscription types (CORRECT)
  • Usage meters (CORRECT)

Correct: In Azure, you’re always charged based on what you use.

Correct: You can purchase Azure-based solutions and services from third-party vendors through Azure Marketplace.

Correct: A number of factors influence the cost of Azure resources. They depend on the type of resource or how you customize it.

Correct: Some Azure subscription types also include usage allowances, which affect costs.

Correct: Usage meters generate a usage record that’s later used to help calculate your bill.

9. Which of the following statements are correct? 

Select all that apply.

  • Azure Reservations offers discounted prices on certain Azure services. (CORRECT)
  • You can use Azure Advisor to monitor your usage. (CORRECT)
  • When you use spending limits, your extra costs roll over to the following month. 

Correct: With Azure Reservations, you can save you up to 72 percent as compared to pay-as-you-go prices. To receive a discount, you reserve services and resources by paying in advance.

10. Which of the following are benefits of migrating from IaaS to PaaS? 

Select all that apply.

  • It can be less expensive to run. (CORRECT)
  • You don’t need to worry about software updates, security patches, or optimizing physical storage for read and write operations. (CORRECT)
  • You still get to manage the underlying operating system.

Correct: When you migrate to PaaS, it can be less expensive to run. 

Correct: When you migrate to PaaS, you don’t need to worry about software updates, security patches, or optimizing physical storage for read and write operations.

11. Where can you access the SLAs for different Azure services? 

Select all that apply. 

  • On the Service-level agreements section of the azure.Microsoft.com website (CORRECT)
  • Correct: You can read the SLAs to learn about uptime guarantees and downtime credit policies on the Service-level agreements section of the azure.Microsoft.com website. Click on this link to have a look
  • On the Azure Portal
  • On Azure documentation (CORRECT)

Correct: You can read the SLAs to learn about uptime guarantees and downtime credit policies on the Service-level agreements section of the azure.Microsoft.com website. Click on this link to have a look 

12. How much downtime do you think 99.9% and 99.99% represent approximately, in terms of hours and minutes, in a year?

  • 9 hours for 99.9% and 53 min for 99.99% (CORRECT)
  • 4.5 hours for 99.9% and 26 min to 99.99%
  • 13.5 hours for 99.9% and 78 min for 99.99%
  • 18 hours for 99.9% and 104 min for 99.99%

Correct: The correct number of hours and minutes is 9 hours for 99.9% and 52 min for 99.99%. 

13. Which of the following do you think would happen if the Special Orders application went down? 

Select all options that apply.

  • Customers can’t place orders. (CORRECT)
  • Staff can’t check orders status. (CORRECT)
  • Tailwind Traders may lose customers. (CORRECT)
  • Other operations will fail.

Correct: Customers would not be able to place orders if the Special Orders app went down.

Correct: Staff would not be able to check orders status if the Special Orders app went down.

Correct: Tailwind Traders may lose customers if the Special Orders app went down.

14. In the scenario detailed in the table below, does the composite SLA meet the required SLA of 99.9 percent?

ServiceSLA
Azure Virtual Machines (2x)99.9 percent
Azure SQL Database99.9 percent
Azure Load Balancer99.9 percent

Follow these steps to get to your answer.

1. What are the individual workloads in the Special Orders application?

2. What is the SLA for each workload? 

3. Do the math?

  • Yes
  • No (CORRECT)

Correct: As you will see in the explanation that follows, the composite SLA does not meet the required SLA of 99.9 percent. 

CONCLUSION – Managing Costs & SLA Service Cycles

In conclusion, this module provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence cloud costs and introduces tools for estimating and managing expenses. You also gain insight into service-level agreements (SLAs) in Microsoft Azure and their impact on application design. Additionally, learning about accessing preview services equips you with the knowledge to enhance your planning and optimize your cloud strategies effectively.

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