As an Azure VM user/administrator, I would like to be able to take an existing VM priced at one rate, and "upgrade" the pricing to include licensing for products installed after provisioning. I would like this to provide flexibility (e.g., if I want to install SQL Server on a Windows priced VM, without losing install/configuration work already undertaken on that VM and without independently licensing SQL; or if I want to add BizTalk to a Win/SQL-priced VM). I would also like this to allow simplified compliance (e.g., a Windows-priced VM is found to have SQL Server installed after provisioning), to allow upgraded/hourly pricing to be applied to an existing VM to reflect installed Microsoft products (at least).

After talking to one of your Senior Support Engineers, they suggested I made a feature request for this.

I'd like to be able to pause, hibernate or otherwise stop a resource group or subscription so that it incurs minimal costs when not in use. I'm suggesting resource group or subscription as one may be easier to implement than the other. Ideally this would be done through ARM but I’d settle for doing it via PowerShell if needed.

I appreciate that VMs can be deallocated but we found that a customer's solution was still using approximately £200 a month due to the application gateway, virtual network gateway and storage of VHDs for a system that is not doing anything. As the solution is not currently contractually in use by the customer at the moment (it is used for about a month twice a year), we have to take on the cost.

I suspect that there are other services that would still be charged: For example it's only fair that storage still be billed and static Public IP addresses probably need to be as well to stay reserved but I'd like a way to put everything else into a state where it stops being accessible and therefore stops incurring charges. I would also assume that things like VMs would need to be shut down and deallocated first else problems may arise.

In the meantime I have deleted the offending services and am in the process of copying the VHDs to local storage in order to delete the VMs as well to clear the storage costs. I intend to look into PowerShell scripts to recreate these systems before the next time they are needed but obviously this method is not ideal.

Hello ! At this moment we can fail over in "Azure to Azure" model only between region's locations. For example if source resource group is located in West Europe we cannot use USA as a target location. Six months ago or more there was a disaster fail of a whole region - unfortunately, I don't remember what was it. However, you will find this event in Azure event logs on the portal. I kindly ask Azure backend team - would you be so kind modify "Azure to Azure" mode and include different regions for target and resource groups please ? We need this feature for our project very much as soon, as possible because we need to implement this feature on our production site as our client insists only on using of different regions.
I'm opened for any discussions, so please do not hesitate and contact me if you need. If you need any details or help in testing please contact me - I'm ready to spend extra time for this case.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Andrey Vishnikin.

see [REG:115031012492134] support reference for full history of this issue

Hi,
It would be great if you could answer the following questions:
1) Please show me where on the azure web site that it states that cloud services are auto deleted immediately if a subscription is disabled for any reason.
2) Please let me know if you also delete cloud services automatically without warning “by design” if a credit card expires or fails dues to funds shortage or the like?
3) Why do you want to seriously annoy your customers by designing your system like this????? That is a ridiculous design! How many partners and the like have you deleted all their work from when a subscription expired????? Please register my utmost infuriation with your management.
4) Please confirm if your standard email response which I received (see below) is wrong? It clearly states all data will be deleted in 90 days.

Hello David Hince,
The following subscription has reached its monthly free Microsoft Azure limit and has been disabled.
Subscription Name: Intertec Action Pack Subscription
To get details about your account usage limits, go to: https://account.windowsazure.com
If you are not in the last month of your subscription term, your Microsoft Azure service will be restored on your subscription's next monthly anniversary.
If you would like to re-enable service for this subscription now, you can upgrade to a paid subscription by signing in to http://account.windowsazure.com using your david.hince@intertec.com.au Microsoft account. Once there, go to this subscription and follow the link to upgrade to a paid subscription. If you upgrade to a paid subscription, you will only be charged standard rates for usage that exceeds free monthly quantities included with your offer.
If you are in the last month of your subscription term and decide not to upgrade to a paid subscription, all data will be deleted in 90 days. Please be sure to retrieve any data you want to keep.
Thank you!
Microsoft Azure

Currently Azure provides a good amount of services for free which will benefits a lot of developers all around the world specially countries like Iran.

Being a developer in Iran which I believe is one of the biggest consumer of Microsoft products like Windows and Windows Phone and also one of the cheapest out sourcing centers for other countries like Australia and European countries it would be great to be able to register with Azure and use its services like Web Apps, Application Insights, Mobile Services,... for personal use or for out sourced projects.

My suggestion is to offer a solution that enables registering Azure services without credit/debit card check so that developers live in countries like Iran would be able to use Azure services especially the free ones.