The clock is ticking: Azure VM RIs exchange opportunity ends July 1

Did you know that companies typically waste as much as 35% of their budgets on unused compute resources? And, oftentimes, these idle resources are commitment waste — reserved commitments purchased at a discount but with the financial lock-in of one or three years. Commitments, such as Azure Compute Reservations (VM RIs), offer significant savings when compared to on-demand. Starting on July 1, 2024, however, the ability to exchange Azure compute reservations will be deprecated, increasing the risk of financial lock-in and commitment waste.

But here’s the good news! Microsoft is offering a generous exchange opportunity for Azure VM RIs purchased before July 1, 2024. RIs purchased during this grace period (before July 1) can be exchanged one time over their term (up to three years), allowing a user to change a reservation’s properties such as family, series, version, SKU, region, quantity, and/or term to better suit their needs.

Maximize your Azure compute savings and easily adapt to the upcoming VM RI changes

Spot Eco for Azure maximizes your cloud savings with intelligent planning, procurement, and utilization and lifecycle management for Reserved Instances and Savings Plans. By taking advantage of RI exchanges and RI-to-Saving Plan exchanges, Spot Eco can build a commitment portfolio that is optimized for long-term flexibility and yields greater savings over the next three years when compared to what would be possible after July 1.

Once the grace period ends, your Azure VM RI purchases will remain locked for their full term, preventing you from taking advantage of new VM releases and exchanging unneeded RIs for more useful ones, which will lead to increased costs.

Don’t believe us? We’ve done the numbers! Azure RIs typically generate 10-20% higher savings than Savings Plans. By taking advantage of the exchange opportunity, customers can increase their RI coverage by an additional 5-10%, leading to an additional overall savings of 10-25% for three years, while also removing the risk of over-commitment.

How does Spot Eco for Azure work?

Using automation, cost specialists, and machine learning algorithms trained on over $1 billion in managed commitments, Spot Eco provides adaptive coverage that increases or decreases to match your actual usage needs. Spot Eco does this by building a commitment portfolio that prioritizes flexible commitments that can be exchanged for commitments that better fit your needs. By purchasing and exchanging flexible commitments, Spot Eco maximizes utilization, which reduces on-demand use and commitment waste. With Spot Eco, your portfolio is designed for maximum flexibility and risk-avoidance. Spot Eco also continuously monitors exchange options and Microsoft’s 12-month rolling cancellation window to ensure you get continuous optimization of your Azure commitments.

Spot Eco is already configured to take advantage of Azure’s VM RI exchange opportunity. Once you sign on, your commitment portfolio is automatically optimized to benefit from this opportunity for the next three years.

Here’s the catch:

The sooner Spot Eco begins managing your commitment portfolio, the more optimized it will be in time for the July 1 exchange cutoff date. Azure customers MUST act immediately, so Spot Eco can take advantage of the limited-time opportunity.

All you need to do is contact us to get started!