Most of you are probably enjoying a well-deserved summer break. It’s good to take a step back, reenergize, and come back fresh with new ideas and inspiration. Most of the Microsoft employees are also likely taking a well-deserved break, as there aren’t any significant changes in the Product Terms. However, there are some impactful updates on Microsoft Cost Management.
Product Terms
Universal License Terms for Online Services: Updated Microsoft Generative AI Services Use of Content for Training section. Microsoft changes Azure OpenAI to Microsoft Generative AI Services and are now referencing to the specific service-specific terms for Azure OpenAI Service.
Privacy & Security Terms: Added Microsoft Defender Experts to the Core Online Services table and Security Practices and Policies for Core Online Services.
Microsoft 365: Updated prerequisite eligibility for Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Service. They extended Copilot for sales prerequisite with Microsoft 365 / Office 365 A1 and Copilot for Services with Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Basic/Business/F1/F3/A1/A3/A5.
Microsoft Azure: Added Use of Content for Fine-Tuning to Azure OpenAI Services section. Moved Azure AI Content Safety under Azure AI Services section.
Microsoft Intune: Added Frontline Worker products to MCA availability table. You can now also buy these products in MCA:
Microsoft Intune Advanced Analytics Frontline Worker (User SL)
Microsoft Intune Cloud PKI Frontline Worker (User SL)
Microsoft Intune Endpoint Privilege Management Frontline Worker (User SL)
Microsoft Intune Enterprise Application Management Frontline Worker (User SL)
Microsoft Intune Plan 2 Frontline Worker (User SL)
Microsoft Intune Remote Help Frontline Worker (User SL)
Microsoft Intune Suite Frontline Worker (User SL)
Microsoft Cost Management
Microsoft will continuously update its Cost Management tooling to give you better insights into your cloud costs and help identify and prevent bad spending patterns. This provides you with the data and insights needed to identify cost optimization opportunities. Here are a few of the latest improvements and updates.
FOCUS 1.0 support in exports
Microsoft updated its data exports to support the “FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS)” from the FinOps Foundation. You can find the FOCUS data export in the Microsoft Azure portal or the REST API.
You can find the change log here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/dataset-schema/cost-usage-details-focus
Cost card in Azure portal
Microsoft is introducing the Cost card in the Azure portal. The Cost card will show engineers a cost breakdown of their VM costs directly from the Azure portal before deploying them. Currently, this is only available for VMs running on pay-as-you-go subscriptions, but Microsoft will extend this in the future.
Kubernetes cost views (new entry point)
Microsoft added a new entry point so that engineers and admins who are already on the cluster page can easily reference their cost.
Pricing updates on Azure.com
Microsoft worked hard on making changes in the way they present their Azure pricing.
- They have expanded their global reach with pricing support for new Azure regions, including Spain Central and Mexico Central.
- They have introduced pricing for several new services—enhancing our Azure portfolio—including Trusted Signing, Azure Advanced Container Networking Services, Azure AI Studio, Microsoft Entra External ID, and Azure API Center (now available on the Azure API Management pricing calculator.)
- The Azure pricing calculator now supports a new example to help you get started with estimating costs for your Azure Arc enabled servers scenarios.
- Azure AI has seen significant updates with pricing support for Basic Video Indexing Analysis for Azure AI Video Indexer, new GPT-4o models and improved Fine Tuning models for Azure OpenAI Service, the deprecation of S2 to S4 volume discount tiers for Azure AI Translator, and the introduction of standard fast transcription and video dubbing, both in preview, for Azure AI Speech.
They are thrilled to announce new features in both preview and general availability stages with Azure flex consumption (preview) for Azure Functions, Advanced messaging (generally available) for Azure Communication Services, and Azure API Center (generally available) for Azure API Management, and AKS Automatic (preview) for Azure Kubernetes.
- They have made comprehensive updates to their pricing models to reflect the latest offerings and ensure you have the most accurate information, including changes to
- Azure Bastion: Added pricing for premium and developer stock-keeping units (SKUs).
- Virtual Machines: Removal of CentOS for Linux, added 5 year reserved instances (RI) pricing for the Hx and HBv4 series, as well as pricing for the new NDsr H100 v5 and E20 v4 series.
- Databricks: Added pricing for all-purpose serverless compute jobs.
- Azure Communication Gateway: Added pricing for the new “Lab” SKU.
- Azure Virtual Desktop for Azure Stack HCI: Pricing added to the Azure Virtual Desktop calculator.
- Azure Data Factory: Added RI pricing for Dataflow.
- Azure Container Apps: Added pricing for dynamic session feature.
- Azure Backup: Added pricing for the new comprehensive Blob Storage data protection feature.
- Azure SQL Database: Added 3 year RI pricing for hyperscale series, zone redundancy pricing for hyperscale elastic pools, and disaster recovery pricing options for single database.
- Azure PostgreSQL: Added pricing for Premium SSD v2.
- Defender for Cloud: Added pricing for the “Pre-Purchase Plan”.
- Azure Stack Hub: Added pricing for site recovery.
- Azure Monitor: Added pricing for pricing for workspace replication as well as data restore in the pricing calculator.
