Overview

Azure Savings Plan products offer discounted pricing on Azure compute when you commit to spend a fixed hourly amount on compute services for one or three years.   


The difference between an Azure Savings Plan and Azure Reserved Instance is:

  • Azure Savings Plans represent a commitment to a minimum spend. 
  • Reserved Instances represent commitments to use certain services. 

The implementation of these products into StreamOne Ion is being done in different phases, and at this moment it consists in three new fields present in the Microsoft CSP Billing Customers Report which allow the user to easily identify Azure Savings Plan benefits being applied to Azure compute service charges in the report. We will also have pricing management and the possibility to transact Azure Savings Plans through the platform in the near future.


This article includes the following topics.


Savings Plan fields in the Microsoft CSP Customers Billing Report

Three new fields are included in the list of selectable fields within the Microsoft CSP Billing Customers Report.

The following fields are displayed in the Customer Billing Report:

  • Savings Plan ID: Specific field in the dataset corresponding to Savings Plan ID.
  • Savings Plan Order ID: Specific field in the dataset corresponding to Savings Plan’s Order ID.
  • Charge or Savings Plan: This field will display Savings Plan, whenever one is applied to the line.


As you can see above, these new fields are devoted to Azure Savings Plans. Their purpose is to clearly identify the benefits being applied to certain paid services these plans may cover, which currently can only be Compute Services as Microsoft has only released Savings Plans for this type of cloud services. For more information, see Microsoft Savings Plan products.


Whenever a paid service is receiving the benefits of a Savings Plan, its charges will display as 0.00 no matter the currency, and the three new fields will be populated with their relevant information.


Note: The use of these three new fields is to signal Savings Plans being applied to paid services, not to express anything in particular from the Savings Plans products themselves. This means that when looking at the charges of the Azure Savings Plan product, you should expect its entry to be just like any other Microsoft CSP product without any Savings Plans benefits being applied to them. So, these three new fields should be blank.


1.   Are Azure Savings Plan products available to be purchased in StreamOne Ion?

Not yet, a follow-up release will bring these products and their plans into the catalog, becoming available to be purchased in the Marketplaces, and also Admin Console’s Customer 360.

 

2.   Can I purchase more than one Savings Plan?

Yes, you can buy multiple Savings Plans for any amount per hour, you would like to commit to, and they will be applied to relevant computing services as long as there is any paid consumption amount to cover.

 

3.   What if I purchased Savings Plans covering more consumption than my actual use of services?

You will receive Saving Plan’s benefits for the consumed services, and the rest will be unused.

 

4.   What if I purchased Savings Plans covering less consumption than my actual use of services?

You will receive Saving Plan’s benefits for the consumed services up to the Savings Plan amount, and the rest will be charged at its regular price. This is an example of this case seen from the Microsoft CSP Billing Customers Report, in which the consumption of the Dv3 Series VM is split into the portion not covered by the Savings Plan above, and the portion covered by the Savings Plan below.



5.   What Publisher Name displays for Savings Plans charges in the report?

The Azure Savings Plan charges are identified under the Microsoft Corporation publisher name, while the usage associated with the compute (or VMs they might cover) are identified under Microsoft.


6.  Is there any option to manage Savings Plans’ pricing today, given that they do not appear in the Microsoft CSP                 Pricebook?

Yes, Savings Plans will receive any global adjustments the Pricebook may have.