(Cost management in Azure ) Azure Fundamentals | AZ-900 By : Mohamed Zohdy - Arabic - شرح عربي

Main topic

• This lecture is the final module/track on governance and cost control for Microsoft Azure services created on your platform.
• Core emphasis: cloud costs must be justified by benefits.
• The course guides you on how to estimate and manage Azure spending.

Key concepts & tools mentioned

Cost calculation mindset

• The owner’s first question: “What benefit will I get in terms of costs to justify paying for cloud services?”

Cost calculators

• Comparison of:
  • an Azure Calculator
  • a Total Cost Calculator (used to estimate cloud cost across different usage durations)
• Discussion of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership):
  • Compare performing the same tasks in Azure vs doing them in your own data center
• A website/tool to check TCO is mentioned.

Cost drivers (factors affecting Azure pricing)

• Resource type
• Consumption/usage
• Maintenance/operations
• Region/market location
• Subscription type
• Marketplace vs bring-your-own deployment

Pricing strategies and examples (what affects cost)

Capital vs operational approach

• Explains CAPEX (buying/owning infrastructure) vs an operational approach where you:
  • lease / consume services
  • pay for what you use and add needed components

Storage cost example

• Cheaper long-term or less-used storage using cold/cached tiers
• Store data you don’t frequently need in cold storage
• This is contrasted with more expensive backup/hot-cold approaches
• Statement: “SD card is cheaper than a block card” (refers to differing storage/media/storage approaches)

Compute optimization examples

• Use Linux instead of Windows to reduce license costs
• Prefer free alternatives vs paid licensing when possible
• Avoid full VMs when not needed
  • Use the right sizing (RAM/CPU) rather than heavier VM setups
• Right-sizing / resizing resources
  • Example: peak need is 32 MB RAM, but typically 4 MB is enough
    • claimed ~60–70% cost reduction by resizing
  • Example: peak need is 16 cores, but usually 2–4 cores are sufficient
    • scale up only when required

Power/consumption pricing models

• Pay-as-you-go (“top up your mobile credit” analogy)
• Reserved usage / reservations for longer periods
  • Example: reserving for a year can reduce cost by ~70–72% vs pay-as-you-go
• Reservations can be 1 to 3 years (details promised later)

Maintenance and monitoring

• Azure can combine operational tasks with monitoring/maintenance, reducing overhead
  • less manual reporting
  • fewer constant management tasks

Geography/region selection

• Region affects per-unit costs (example: Western Europe vs America)
• Recommendation: pick the region that best reduces cost

Network traffic / bandwidth costs

• Mentions a bandwidth pricing tool that differentiates:
  • in-region/inbound bandwidth (lower cost)
  • outbound bandwidth (higher cost)
• Discusses intra-region data transfer concepts (entering vs exiting / within region)

Subscription type

• Compares:
  • pay-as-you-go
  • entering contracts/agreements with Microsoft (contracted option can be lower cost)

Marketplace pricing

• Ready-made VM images with preinstalled products (e.g., Oracle/SAP/SQL) cost more than:
  • a blank VM where you install and license yourself
• Key principle: more licensing content inside the image = higher cost

What the next lecture will cover

• The next session will cover Azure calculator and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in more detail.

Main speakers / sources

• Speaker: Mohamed Zohdy
  • Arabic lecture title: “Azure Fundamentals | AZ-900 By Mohamed Zohdy - Arabic”