Azure Saving Plan vs. Reserved Instances, Document Extract and Notes

I have compiled the following information to help you better understand “Saving plan” and “Reserve instances” when using Pricing Calculator as shown on the left.

	Azure Saving Plan	Azure Reserved Instance
Doc	Save with Azure savings plans	Save with Azure reservations
What	Up to 30%+ discount from pay-as-you-go pricing across Azure compute resource globally Applicable to a selected scope Scope changeable Plan transferable between supported agreements 1- or 3-year commitment with monthly or up-front payment For Windows VMs and SQL Database, the saving plan discount doesn’t apply to the software costs. You may be able to cover the licensing costs with Azure Hybrid Benefit. Self-service reservations trade-in for Azure savings plans If your Azure VMs, Dedicated Hosts, or Azure App Service reservations don’t provide the necessary flexibility you need, you may trade them for a savings plan.	Up to 60%+ discount from pay-as-you-go prices Reservation scoping and options Discount auto-applies to the resource usage that matches the attributes you select when you buy the reservation including: SKU, Region (where applicable); and Reservation scope 1- or 3-year commitment with monthly or up-front payment Reservation benefits are “use-it-or-lose-it” at hourly grain.
How	Search the keyword, save and click Saving plans. Who can buy a savings plan Savings plan-eligible resources Determine your savings plan commitment Manage Azure savings plans – Microsoft Cost Management	Seach with the keyword, save or reservation, and click Reservations. Determine what to purchasePurchase reservations
Why	Consistent compute spending on disparate resources	Consistent resource usage

Additional Information

• Spot Virtual Machines – Spot Pricing and Features

Use Spot Virtual Machines to buy unused compute capacity at significant cost savings for:

• workloads that can handle interruptions and don’t need to be completed within a specific period of time.
• workloads for dev/test/QA/Batch/ML/AI/image, etc. 

• Azure Dev/Test pricing
  • Provision fast, lean, and highly secure dev/test workloads on Azure—and realize substantial cost savings compared to your production workloads.
  • Azure Dev/Test pricing plan
    • Pay-As-You-Go
    • Enterprise
    • An active subscriber of Visual Studio with the Microsoft Customer Agreement

Azure Network Topology Document Extracts and Notes

Azure Network Topology

• Two core approaches: traditional and Azure Virtual WAN
• The above document has a topology diagram for each model.

Feature	Traditional Azure Network Topology	Azure Virtual WAN Network Topology
Highlights	Customer-managed routing and security An Azure subscription can create up to 50 vnets across all regions. Vnet Peering links two vnets either in the same region or in different regions and enables you to route traffic between them using private IP addresses (carry a nominal charge). Inbound and outbound traffic is charged at both ends of the peered networks. Network appliances such as VPN Gateway and Application Gateway that are run inside a virtual network are also charged. Azure Virtual Network Pricing	A Microsoft-managed networking service providing optimized and automated branch to branch connectivity through Azure. Virtual WAN allows customers to connect branches to each other and Azure, centralizing their network and security needs with virtual appliances such as firewalls and Azure network and security services. Azure Virtual WAN Pricing
Deployment	Customized deployment with routing and security managed by the customer Virtual Network documentation – Plan virtual networks – Tutorial: Filter network traffic with a network security group using the Azure portal	Microsoft-managed service Virtual WAN documentation – Tutorial: Create an ExpressRoute association to Virtual WAN – Azure portal – Other tutorials include site-to-site and point-to-site connections
Interconnectivity	Traffic between two virtual networks across two different Azure regions is expected. Full mesh network across all Azure regions is not required.	Global connectivity between vnets in these Azure regions and multiple on-premises locations.
IPsec Tunnels	Fewer than 30 IPsec Site-to-Site tunnels are needed.	More than 30 branch sites for native IPsec termination.
Routing Policy	Full control and granularity for manually configuring your Azure network routing policy.	Not applicable
Data Collection	Collects data from servers and Kubernetes clusters.	Collects data from servers and Kubernetes clusters.
Data Storage	Stores data in Log Analytics workspace or customer’s own storage account.	Stores data in Log Analytics workspace or customer’s own storage account.
Data Analysis and Visualization	Uses Log Analytics for analysis and visualization of collected data.	Uses Azure Monitor for analysis and visualization of collected data.

Additional Information

• Hub-spoke network topology in Azure
• Hub-spoke network topology with Azure Virtual WAN
• Patterns for inter-spoke networking