Compare Azure costs for migration

The Azure Pricing Calculator is a useful tool that you can use during a data platform modernization project to estimate the costs of different Azure services and migration approaches.

In your global retailer, the data platform modernization project is expected to realize significant savings, but the board of directors has asked you to estimate the costs of different Azure migration options as precisely as possible.

Here, you’ll calculate the estimated costs of migrating to Azure by using the Azure Pricing Calculator.

This exercise will take approximately 30 minutes.

Calculate the estimated Azure costs

  1. Open a new browser tab and navigate to Azure Pricing Calculator.
  2. The Azure Pricing Calculator helps you estimate costs for Azure services. We’ll calculate the cost of migrating your database workload to Azure.

Add the database workload

  1. In the Products section, locate and select Azure SQL Database (you can use the search or browse the Databases category).

  2. In the Azure SQL Database configuration panel that appears further down the page, enter these values:

    Property Value
    Region East US (or your preferred region)
    Type Single Database
    Purchase model vCore
    Service tier General Purpose
    Compute tier Provisioned
    Hardware Type Standard-series (Gen5)
    Instance 4 vCore
    Disaster Recovery Primary or Geo replica
    Compute Locally Redundant
    Storage 32 GB
    Backup storage RA-GRS
  3. Review the monthly cost estimate displayed for the SQL Database.

Add a Virtual Machine for comparison

  1. Back in the Products section, locate and select Virtual Machines.

  2. In the Virtual Machines configuration panel, enter these values:

    Property Value
    Region East US (same as database)
    Operating System Windows
    Type SQL Server
    Tier Standard
    Instance D4s v3 (4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM)
    Virtual Machines 1
    License SQL Standard
  3. Expand Managed Disks, and add:
    • Tier: Premium SSD, 128 GB

Add storage for backups

  1. In the Products section, locate and select Storage Accounts.

  2. In the Storage Accounts configuration panel, enter these values:

    Property Value
    Region East US
    Type Block Blob Storage
    Performance Standard
    Storage Account Type General Purpose V2
    File Structure Flat Namespace
    Access tier Hot
    Redundancy LRS
    Capacity 1 TB

Review and compare costs

  1. Review the total estimated monthly costs for all the services you’ve added:
    • SQL Database: Managed database service costs
    • Virtual Machines: Infrastructure costs for SQL Server on VM
    • Storage Accounts: Backup and additional storage costs
  2. Consider the following questions as you review the estimates:
    • How do the costs compare between SQL Database (PaaS) and SQL Server on VM (IaaS)?
    • What are the trade-offs between managed services vs. infrastructure services?
    • How might these costs scale with your workload requirements?
  3. You can save this estimate by selecting Save or Export to share with stakeholders.

Explore cost optimization options

  1. In each service configuration, explore different options to see how they impact costs:
    • SQL Database: Try different service tiers (Basic, Standard, Premium) and compute sizes
    • Virtual Machines: Compare different VM sizes and storage options
    • Storage: Compare different redundancy options and access tiers
  2. Note how changing these options affects your overall monthly estimate.

You’ve used the Azure Pricing Calculator to estimate costs for migrating Adatum Corporation’s Accounting server and its associated databases to different Azure services. This gives you a foundation for comparing infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) vs. platform-as-a-service (PaaS) options and planning your migration budget.