1. TH03 - Tips & Tricks on
Architecting W indows Azure for
Costs
Nuno Godinho
Cloud Solution Architect
Level: Introdutory

2. About Me
Nuno Filipe Godinho
Cloud Solution Architect @ Aditi
Windows Azure MVP
nunog@aditi.com
http://msmvps.com/blogs/nunogodinho
Twitter: @NunoGodinho

3. Agenda
• Compute
• Bandwidth, Storage & Transactions
• SQL Azure
• Customer Awareness
• Developer Awareness
• Scenarios
• Key Takeaways

4. COMPUTE

5. Limiting virtual machine count
• Do you need full capacity 24/7?
– Probably not, reduce # cpu’s when not used
• Use Windows Azure Diagnostics API &
Windows Azure Management API to scale
(semi) automatically
– 24 hours x 10 small instances = $28.80/day
vs.
– 16 hours x 10 small instances
+ 8 hours x 4 extra-small instances = $20.48/day

6. Limiting virtual machine count
Don’t Forget
• Staging environment costs
• When not in use, undeploy the staging
environment
– 24 hours x 5 small instances = $14.4/day

7. Workers need work!
• Out of the box, 1 worker role = 1 task
• Why not spin up processes or threads?
• Example: You want 20 tasks running
– Option1: 1 task per worker = 20 workers = ~ 42 EUR/day
– Option2: 2 tasks per worker = 10 workers = ~ 21 EUR/day
– Option3: 10 tasks per worker = 2 workers = ~ 4,2 EUR/day
– Which means ~ 42 EUR / day vs. ~ 4,2 EUR / day = 90%
savings
• “Generic workers”: http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/downloads/76537edf-9b77-4664-b76b-cf51be506a0d/
• DON’T FORGET: 2 instances minimum for the SLA

8. Do you need all of that?
• 1 XL = 2 L = 4 M = 8 S (regarding costs)
• No need for this memory / disk space?
– Start small
– Scale up/down more granularly

9. IMPORTANT
• Billing per reserved VM
– Reserved = deployed / running
• Billing in staging and production
– 2 instances staging + 2 instances production = 4
instances billed
• Undeploy your VM if not needed
– Undeploy staging every evening
– Automate this

10. Work per hour
• Billed per clock hour / CPU
• Keep instances running at least until x:55
• Don’t deploy at x:50, instead deploy at
x:55
– Deploy at x:50 and undeploy at x+1:10
– 2 hours billed!
• Don’t deploy every minute
– = 60 instance hours per hour!
– Don’t do continuous deployment for every build, but
accumulate

11. BAND WIDTH, STORAGE
& TRANSACTIONS

12. Bandwidth?
• Simple metric
– Use more = pay more
– Use less = pay less

13. When am I using bandwidth?
• Data transfers in/out Windows Azure
– Compute
– Blobs
– AppFabric
– SQL Azure
• Data transfers between Windows Azure
regions
– E.g. North America – Europe
– IMPORTANT: Keep compute & storage in the same
region!

14. Content Delivery Network
• Content distributed across 24 Node
servers across the world
• Storage costs = Storage costs for public
containers x 2
• Bandwidth costs = # data in public
containers x # servers
– Can be limited by setting cache headers

15. Data Storage
• Data you store (non SQL)
– Tables
– Blobs
– Queues
• Per GB / month
• Average over full month
– 10 GB stored for 15 days, 0 GB stored for 15 days = 5
GB stored for 1 month

16. Transactions
• 1 transaction = 1 storage operation
• Billed per 10.000
• Example: Checking a queue every second
from 2 workers
– 172.800 transactions / day
• Use a back-off mechanism
– No data? Wait a second
– Again no data? Wait two seconds
– Etc.

17. Transactions
• Use Service Bus Queues and Notifications
• Serving 100 images from blob storage
– High traffic app  high # transactions
– Choose wisely between blob storage and compute

18. Diagnostics monitor
• Writes data to storage account
• Does not clean up
• Write often = # transactions
• Write less = lag in diagnostic data

19. SQL AZURE

20. Database editions
Database Size Price Per Database Per Month
0 to 100 MB Flat $4.995
Greater than 100 MB to 1 GB Flat $9.99
$9.99 for first GB, $3.996 for
Greater than 1 GB to 10 GB
each additional GB
$45.954 for first 10 GB, $1.998
Greater than 10 GB to 50 GB
for each additional GB
$125.874 for first 50 GB, $0.999
Great than 50 GB to 150 GB
for each additional GB

21. Billing nuances
• Based on peak DB size / day
• Averaged over 1 month
• Actual database edition size used is billed
• Examples
– 0.9 GB in a 5 GB web edition costs 1 GB
(= $9.99)
– 1.1 GB in a 5 GB web edition costs 5 GB
(= $49.95)

22. Tables & indexes cost money
• Be careful with them
• Only define indexes needed
• Indexing every column & not using it may
be a waste of money
• Example
– If an index does not add speed, lose it
– If the data relational, go NoSQL
– Table with 1 GB of “static data” on SQL Azure = $
9.99, on table/blob storage it costs $ 0.12...

23. CUSTOMER
AWARENESS

24. Customer awareness
• Yes, you can have all you want
• Yes, you can have it your way
BUT...

25. Discuss OpEx!
• Cost-analyze the requirements
• Discuss implications & alternatives with
stakeholders
– Pay more for user experience?
– Cheaper alternative experience?
– Clever solutions?
• Review the options you considered
• Write them down & sign off
– Or you will return to these discussions again and
again

26. DEVELOPER
AWARENESS

27. A code snippet...
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28. Analysing Real World Scenarios
SCENARIOS

29. Static WebSite
SCENARIO 1

30. Scenario 1 – Static WebSite
What to use? Options?
Blob Storage
Compute
Option 1: Blob Storage
We pay for?
Storage Space
Transactions
Bandwidth In/Out
Option 2: Compute
We pay for?
Compute Hours
Bandwidth In/Out

31. Scenario 1 – Static WebSite – v1
Number of Concurrent Users: 10 / second
WebSite Storage Space: 0,5 GB
Average Number of files served per User: 5
Average file size: 200 KB
Option 1: Blob Storage
We pay for?
Storage Space = 0,5 GB * 0,15 = 0,075 USD
Transactions = (10 * 5 * 60 * 24 * 30 ) / 10k * 0,01 = 2,16 USD
Bandwidth In/Out = (10 * 5* 60 * 30 * 0,0002) * 0,15 = 2,7 USD
Total Costs ~ $ 5
Option 2: Compute
We pay for?
Compute Hours = (2 * 24 * 30) * 0,12 = 172,8 USD
Transactions = (1 * 5 * 60 * 24 * 30 ) / 10k * 0,01 = 0,216 USD
Bandwidth In/Out = (10 * 5* 60 * 30 * 0,0002) * 0,15 = 2,7 USD
Total Costs ~ $ 176

32. Scenario 1 – Static WebSite – v2
Number of Concurrent Users: 1000 / second
WebSite Storage Space: 0,5 GB
Average Number of files served per User: 5
Average file size: 200 KB
Option 1: Blob Storage
We pay for?
Storage Space = 0,5 GB * 0,15 = 0,075 USD
Transactions = (1000 * 5 * 60 * 24 * 30 ) / 10k * 0,01 = 216 USD
Bandwidth In/Out = (1000 * 5* 60 * 30 * 0,0002) * 0,15 = 270 USD
Total Costs ~ $ 487
Option 2: Compute
We pay for?
Compute Hours = (2 * 24 * 30) * 0,12 = 172,8 USD
Transactions = (1 * 5 * 60 * 24 * 30 ) / 10k * 0,01 = 0,216 USD
Bandwidth In/Out = (1000 * 5* 60 * 30 * 0,0002) * 0,15 = 270 USD
Total Costs ~ $ 444

33. Scenario 3 – Static WebSite – v3
Number of Concurrent Users: 2000 / second
WebSite Storage Space: 0,5 GB
Average Number of files served per User: 5
Average file size: 200 KB
Option 1: Blob Storage
We pay for?
Storage Space = 0,5 GB * 0,15 = 0,075 USD
Transactions = (2000 * 5 * 60 * 24 * 30 ) / 10k * 0,01 = 432 USD
Bandwidth In/Out = (2000 * 5* 60 * 30 * 0,0002) * 0,15 = 540 USD
Total Costs ~ $ 973
Option 2: Compute
We pay for?
Compute Hours = (2 * 24 * 30) * 0,12 = 172,8 USD
Transactions = (1 * 5 * 60 * 24 * 30 ) / 10k * 0,01 = 0,216 USD
Bandwidth In/Out = (2000 * 5* 60 * 30 * 0,0002) * 0,15 = 540 USD
Total Costs ~ $ 714

34. Application Data Storage
SCENARIO 2

35. Scenario 2 – Application Data
Storage
• What to use? Options?
– SQL Azure
– Table Storage
– SQL Azure + Table Storage
• Assumptions
– Number of Concurrent Users: 100 / second
– Database Size: 10 GB
– Average response size: 200 KB
– Reference Data Percentage: 20 %
– History Data Percentage: 30 %
– Simple Indexed Data Percentage: 40%
– Highly searched Data Percentage: 10%

36. Scenario 2 – Application Data
Storage – v1
• Option 1: SQL Azure
– We pay for?
Database Storage = $ 45.954
Bandwidth Out = (100 * 60 * 30 * 0.0002) * 0,15 = $ 5.4
Total Cost: $ 51.354

37. Scenario 2 – Application Data
Storage – v2
• Option 2: Table Storage
– We pay for?
Storage Space = 10 GB * 0,15 = $ 1.5
Transactions = (100 * 60 * 24 * 30 ) / 10k * 0.01 = $ 4,32
Bandwidth Out = (100 * 60 * 30 * 0.0002) * 0.15 = $ 5.4
Total Costs = $ 11.22

38. Scenario 2 – Application Data
Storage – v3
• Option 3: SQL Azure + Table Storage
– We pay for?
SQL Azure
Database Storage =1 GB = $ 9.99
Bandwidth Out = (100 * 60 * 30 * 0.0002) * 0.15 = $ 5.4
Table Storage
Storage Space = 9 GB * 0.15 = $ 1.35
Transactions = (100 * 60 * 24 * 30 ) / 10k * 0.01 = $ 4.32
Bandwidth Out = (100 * 60 * 30 * 0.0002) * 0,15 = $ 5.4
Total Costs = $ 26.46

39. What to remember?
KEY TAKEAWAYS

40. Key Takeaways
• Cloud pricing isn’t more complex
– Just “different”
• Every component has own characteristics
• Requirements impact costs
• Developers impact costs
• Windows Azure pricing model can improve
code quality
• But don’t over-analyze!

41. Resources
• Starting point:
– http://www.windowsazure.com
• Steve Marx:
– http://blog.smarx.com
• Cloud Cover Show
– http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Cloud+Cover
• Special Thanks to Maarten Balliauw
– http://blog.maartenballiauw.be

42. THANK YOU
Nuno Godinho
Cloud Solution Architect @ Aditi
nunog@aditi.com
Twitter: @NunoGodinho
http://msmvps.com/blogs/nunogodinho