Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#1

Post by panarky » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 9:45 PM UTC

Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage
blogs.msdn.com

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#2

Post by JeremyMorgan » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 9:58 PM UTC

Very nice!

I think Azure's biggest hurdle so far is the association with Microsoft and people assuming "well it must be expensive" only to be proven right when they sign up.

That being said, some parts of Azure are pretty cheap and for small site it's affordable as it is now. You can get 10 free websites and a couple decent sized databases for around $40 a month which gives you better service and scalability than you would get from a hosting provider at $40 a month.

If you're running a business or have some real traffic though, expect to pay considerably more for the service. It can really expensive, very fast.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#3

Post by apapli » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

I lost count of the times they mentioned Amazon or AWS in this article. This is going to be exciting, Microsoft are really gunning for them.

Interestingly it looked like the price comparison tables were based on on-demand pricing. Does azure have something similar to AWS's reserved instance model?

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#4

Post by panarky » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

Microsoft created an entirely new instance type to match EC2 prices, ostensibly because EC2 instances don't include load balancing.

And the performance of the new "basic" instances will be reduced:

  Basic instances will have similar performance characteristics
  to AWS’s equivalent instances while the Standard instances
  will maintain their favorable performance.

Anyone know how "favorable" Azure performance is on their standard instance type?

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#5

Post by bskap » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 10:07 PM UTC

apapli wrote: post #3

I lost count of the times they mentioned Amazon or AWS in this article. This is going to be exciting, Microsoft are really gunning for them. Interestingly it looked like the price comparison tables were based on on-demand pricing. Does azure have something similar to AWS's reserved instance model?

Yes, it's just a percent off the on-demand pricing instead of being priced separately. Details at http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/offers/commitment-plans/

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#6

Post by jw2013 » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 10:10 PM UTC

It's interesting that MSFT has already reduced Azure's price early this January to counter the price reductions by AWS back in January. And also in April 2013, MSFT responded AWS's price drop with 21%-33% Azure price reduction.

Are we in the era of cloud price-bidding war? And the ultimate beneficiary are us the users.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#7

Post by lelandriordan » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 10:16 PM UTC

jw2013 wrote: post #6

It's interesting that MSFT has already reduced Azure's price early this January to counter the price reductions by AWS back in January. And also in April 2013, MSFT responded AWS's price drop with 21%-33% Azure price reduction. Are we in the era of cloud price-bidding war? And the ultimate beneficiary are us the users.

Yes. MS said that they would match any AWS price change.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#8

Post by yulaow » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 10:19 PM UTC

lelandriordan wrote: post #7

jw2013 wrote: post #6

It's interesting that MSFT has already reduced Azure's price early this January to counter the price reductions by AWS back in January. And also in April 2013, MSFT responded AWS's price drop with 21%-33% Azure price reduction. Are we in the era of cloud price-bidding war? And the ultimate beneficiary are us the users.

Yes. MS said that they would match any AWS price change.

We have to hope they never form a sort of cartel or join an informal alliance. Until now we are really getting a lot of benefits due to this competition

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#9

Post by kenrikm » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 10:19 PM UTC

JeremyMorgan wrote: post #2

Very nice! I think Azure's biggest hurdle so far is the association with Microsoft and people assuming "well it must be expensive" only to be proven right when they sign up. That being said, some parts of Azure are pretty cheap and for small site it's affordable as it is now. You can get 10 free websites and a couple decent sized databases for around $40 a month which gives you better service and scalability than you…

So can hiring extra server admins, There's always a tradeoff.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#10

Post by iambateman » Mon, Mar 31, 2014, 10:19 PM UTC

I've used Azure's cloud hosting in production for a half dozen sites and I have to say it's driving me nuts.

We tried to flip DNS to Azure and it wouldn't resolve. It took our senior developer two days of talking to Azure support to solve. Ended up being their fault.

Today I ported some work using PHP's mail() function, which evidently Azure doesn't support?

This is probably our own fault for switching environments but we've moved sites from Media Temple and GoDaddy to Azure and consistently had problems.

Needless to say, a price drop isn't making me any more excited about Azure. Their UI is convoluted (though beautiful, for sure) and I've had nothing but issues with it.