14 DAY TRIAL // Come October 1st, 2011, Windows Azure Cloud Essentials will offer customers no less than 1,125 extra small compute hours, up from 750 today.
At the start of October 2011 Microsoft plans to update billing for its Cloud platform. The changes are designed to boost flexibility and simplicity, the Redmond company noted.
“First, the price of extra small compute will be reduced by 20 percent. Additionally, the compute allocations for all of our offers will be simplified to small compute hours,” the software giant said.
Customers with MSDN Professional will be able to enjoy 1,125 extra small compute hours, also up from 750, with MSDN Premium licenses packing as much as 2,250 extra small compute hours compared to just 1,500.
In addition, MSDN Ultimate license agreements will come with 4,500 extra small compute hours. But this only if customers will use extra small compute.
Starting in October, Cloud Essentials and MSDN Professional will deliver 375 small compute hours, 750 for MSDN Premium and 1,500 for MSDN Ultimate.
“To deliver additional flexibility to our customers, these hours can also be used for extra small compute at a ratio of 3 extra small compute hours per 1 hour of small compute. Customers can also utilize these hours for other compute sizes at the standard prescribed ratios noted in their rate plan,” Microsoft added.
Customers can also forget about the complexity of the current meter system, and say goodbye to multiple regions and separate meters designed to cover standard data transfers and CDN.
Microsoft will bill Windows Azure usage in accordance with “Zone 1” and “Zone 2” starting this October. Zone 1 will cover customers leveraging data centers in Europe and North America. Microsoft server farms outside of Zone 1 fall under Zone 2, obviously.
“This change will ease customer’s ability to monitor data transfers and understand billing charges. The price per GB for outbound data transfers will not change. Customers will also gain the flexibility to utilize CDN data transfers against any data transfer amounts included with their offer. For billing periods that overlap September and October, customers will see both the current regional and new Zone 1 and 2 meters on their invoice,” the software giant added.