The Azure Hybrid Benefit feature enables users of Windows Server and/or SQL Server licenses with active Software Assurance to continue using their existing licenses to run those workloads on Azure and pay a discounted rate for the infrastructure costs. Customers may use this capability to save costs while gaining access to Azure’s scalability and other advantages. Other useful articles can be found here: Azure Monitor and How to Mount Volume to Docker Container also How to Find a User’s Security Identifier (SID) in Windows and How to run Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool in Windows also How to create a dual-boot setup on Windows 11 and Remove Azure VM. In this guide, you will Azure Hybrid Use Cases and Benefits in production.

Benefits of Using Hybrid Benefit

The Azure Hybrid Benefit can provide several benefits for customers, such as:

Cost savings: Customers can use their existing Windows Server and/or SQL Server licenses to run those workloads on Azure and pay a reduced rate for the infrastructure costs. This results in significant savings.

Flexibility: Customers can use their existing licenses to run their workloads on-premises or in the cloud, depending on their needs, and easily move workloads between the two environments.

Scalability: Customers can take advantage of the scalability and other benefits of running their workloads on Azure, such as the ability to easily add more resources as needed.

Improved disaster recovery: Customers can use Azure Site Recovery to replicate their on-premises workloads to Azure, which can provide an additional layer of protection and make it easier to recover from a disaster.

Easier compliance: Customers can use Azure’s compliance features, such as Azure Policy and Azure Security Center, to help ensure that their workloads meet regulatory requirements.

The benefit of Hybrid Benefits for production purposes

Customers can save money by using Azure Hybrid Benefit for production workloads, which also gives them the opportunity to scale, improve disaster recovery, and increase availability while still adhering to compliance rules. In this section, you will learn more about Azure Hybrid Use Cases and Benefits. Using the Azure Hybrid Benefit for production purposes can provide several benefits for customers, such as:

Cost savings: As explained earlier, customers can use their existing Windows Server and/or SQL Server licenses to run those workloads on Azure and pay a reduced rate for the infrastructure costs, which can result in significant savings.

Scalability: Customers can take advantage of the scalability and other benefits of running their workloads on Azure, such as the ability to easily add more resources as needed, thus ensuring that their production workloads can handle the traffic and load.

Improved availability: By using Azure’s built-in high availability features, such as availability sets, customers can ensure that their production workloads are always available, even in the event of a failure.

Improved disaster recovery: Customers can use Azure Site Recovery to replicate their on-premises production workloads to Azure, which can provide an additional layer of protection and make it easier to recover from a disaster, ensuring that their production workloads are always available.

Easier compliance: Customers can use Azure’s compliance features, such as Azure Policy and Azure Security Center. This will help ensure that their production workloads meet regulatory requirements.

Azure Hybrid Benefits

1: A customer with active Software Assurance on Windows Server can leverage the Azure Hybrid Benefit for a VM. Instead of investing in new Windows Server licenses for Azure, they can use current licenses to host a VM. For the infrastructure expenditures (compute, storage, and networking) related to the VM. They would pay the usual rate, but not for the Windows Server license.

2: Instead of purchasing new Azure-based SQL Server licenses, a client who owns SQL Server licenses with active Software Assurance can use their current licenses to operate SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (VMs). Or on Azure SQL Database Managed Instance.

They wouldn’t pay for the SQL Server license, but they would pay the normal rate. That is, for the infrastructure expenditures (computing, storage, and networking) related to the database.

In this manner, they may make use of their current licenses. Thereby saving money by enjoying the advantages of running their workloads on Azure, such as scalability and high availability.

The use case for a pay-as-you-go with the pricing calculator

without-hybrid-benefit — Pricing for a VM without Hybrid benefit

From the image above, you will see that the Hybrid benefit is not selected. And as such, the monthly price comes to $152.57

with-hybrid-benefit — pricing for a VM with Hybrid Benefit

From the image above, we can see that when the Hybrid benefit was not selected, the price is $152. 57 when it was selected, the price was reduced to $85.41, the difference is $67.16. This is a significant amount just for one month and one virtual machine, for a year this comes to $805.92. We would be able to save a considerable amount of money if we applied hybrid benefits to more virtual machines.

Azure Hybrid Use Cases and Benefits Summary

You have learned about “Azure Hybrid Use Cases and Benefits in production”. Azure Hybrid Benefit enables users of Windows Server and/or SQL Server licenses with valid Software Assurance to continue utilizing their existing licenses. This enables them to run their workloads on Azure and pay a reduced rate for infrastructure costs. There are lots of benefits and they have been discussed in this article