Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server — An Overview

Following on from our blog on Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows, this post and accompanying video (below) recorded by Richard Ojo and Karl O’Doherty at Version 1, will outline what Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB) is, some of the options and associated commercial gains available, the importance of governance and how to maximise the cost benefits in AHB.

What is Azure Hybrid Benefit?

Azure Hybrid Benefit is a software assurance benefit that allows you to realise greater ROI from your investment in on-premises licenses by bringing those licenses to Azure, effectively eliminating the software rental fee associated with Windows SQL Server.

Four Flavours of Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server

1. Azure VMs
2. Azure Dedicated Hosts
3. Azure SQL Server Database
4. Azure Data Factory SQL Server Integration Services

Within each of these four flavours, AHB will deliver their own set of commercial gains. Below is a quick overview on some of the benefits from two of the options above.

Azure VMs

If you have SQL Server Enterprise core licenses, and you are moving these into Azure VMs, if you move them into SQL Server Enterprise Virtual Machines, one on-premises core is equal to one vCPU. However, if you move SQL Server Enterprise core licenses into SQL Server Standard Virtual Machines, one core license gives you four vCPUs.

When compared with standard, if you were to move one SQL Server Standard into SQL Server Standard Virtual Machines, one on-premises core is equal to one vCPU. If you move this into Enterprise Virtual Machines, you will need four on-premises core licenses for one vCPU.

Azure Dedicated Hosts

If you have a highly virtualised environment (on premise), you can license the underlying physical host and then deploy an unlimited number of VMs running SQL Server. The same applies if you were to move into Azure Dedicated Hosts running SQL Server. You could then take advantage of the same iVirtualisation rights that you have as on-premises. Additionally you could take advantage of the extended security updates on the Azure Dedicated Host and enhanced failover and licensing benefits versus using the Pay as You Go model.

As illustrated, there are several benefits within each one of the options stated that can be explored depending on your workload, business infrastructure and how each option may suit your needs — you can take advantage of some of the options or enjoy a mixture of them all.

When this benefit is optimised to its full potential, we have seen cost savings in client environments that range from approx. 15% to approx. 40%. It is also worth remembering that this is a software assurance benefit, so there is a cost associated with maintaining that software assurance and as soon as that lapses the benefit will cease to exist.

Governance

Which brings us to an interesting point. Much like Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server, this is a trust-based platform. There are no checks and balances, so it is up to you to ensure that you are managing your compliance and are working within the rules as to how the benefit is applied.

• If you are unclear as to your license position on-premises and how your license entitlement applies to SQL Server on-premises, there is a risk that you can start to use Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server and by doing so you are removing the right to use some of those licenses on-premises and that can create a gap in your license position on-premises, leading to a potential risk of non-compliance and threat of an audit.

Having Governance in place to track and manage your license estate is important, particularly due to the lack of dual use rights. Dual use rights do exist, but these are primarily associated with the migration phase of a project where you have a certain number of days you are permitted to migrate from on-premises to the cloud and have licenses running at the same time in both environments.

• Some organisations start to use AHB in the early days of their Azure journey against machines that are not optimal for AHB. As you start to scale your investment in Azure, re-assess where the benefit could be moved around your estate and better applied to reduce costs even further.

Keep your SAM Team involved in what you are doing in your estate to ensure that you stay within the rules of AHB and avoid the risk of non-compliance.

Maximising the Cost Benefit of AHB

There are a number of cost saving and cost avoidance opportunities to be aware of, as follows;

• Ensure that licenses that have been moved in Azure are not also being used on-premises. This will eliminate the possibility of dual use.
• Assess your server environment that is applied to AHB to fully take advantage of the benefit. Consider applying AHB to servers or workloads that are on 24/7/365 as opposed to smaller servers on test environment that has a low level of use.
• With Azure Dedicated Host you can take advantage of a highly virtualised environment to save cost.
• Small changes in licensing — For your non-production environment consider using SQL Server developer which is free. It is important to note that SQL Server Developer has the same components as SQL Server Enterprise, so where you need to mirror your Production environment to your non-production environment be careful not to create a mismatch in capabilities.
• We would also advise not applying AHB to development and test workloads covered by Visual Studio or MSDN subscriptions. It is a waste to do so as VS/MSDN subscriptions offer a similar benefit to AHB called “Cloud Use Rights”. Leveraging these EA Test/Dev benefits provides flexible low cost licensing options.

Summary

As we have outlined, there are a significant number of commercial gains that can be taken advantage of within Azure Hybrid Benefit. Full value realisation can be uncovered with the support of a license expert in tandem with your technical resource to create cost savings, cost avoidance and risk reduction.

Further Information

As Microsoft license experts, we have deep expertise in the application and management of Azure Hybrid Benefit and are happy to help with any Microsoft license queries you may have. Please go to our website or contact us with any questions.