VM Hours

Question

I just received my hosting code and it mentioned that we are limited to 2000 VM hours for the duration of the CTP.

Am I correct in assuming that if I have one instance running, I will run out of usage in 83 days (2000 hours / 24 hours = 83.3 days) or is it possible for an instance to use less than 1 hour of VM CPU over the course of 1 "real" hour?

Answer 1

An excellent question. I was asking about this as well because I wanted to make sure that my Worker Role wasn't wasting CPU hours by needlessly checking the contents of an empty work queue. It was suggested that in future versions of this CTP/Beta we get the ability to "wake" the worker when new items are placed into the queue and not until then. Also, I think our Web Role should be put to sleep and stop using VM hours if there have been no requests to it within a certain amount of time.

This way,I won't get "penalized" for doing a publish to the cloud just to see if my code is compatible with both cloud and local environments (which are different enough to require this step).. I don't want to come back 83 days later to find out that I've got no more VM time just because I did a test publish a couple months ago.

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The .NET Addict - http://dotnetaddict.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com

Answer 2

For the CTP one CPU HR is basically  one HR of wall clock time. When we RTM the pricing model maybe different, so you should not interpret this CTP behavior as something fixed in stone. Your feeback on what pricing models make sense, and what system features you want to reduce your costs given a particular pricing model are welcome.

Answer 3

Also note that we will allow people with active development to extend their quota. Since we are not charging during the CTP, we want to make sure the stale development projects are not taking up resources that could be used better.

Answer 4

What will be the process for requesting quota extension?

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MyCloudApp.net - Your Unofficial Source for Azure Services Platform Information

Answer 5

If you have a compelling case, send us an email at [e-mail] and we'll work with you.

Answer 6

Thanks! I will probably be sending an email if/when it comes down to that.

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MyCloudApp.net - Your Unofficial Source for Azure Services Platform Information

Answer 7

My expectation of Azure was that you would only be charged for actual CPU utilization (VM Hours), if i am correct, as it is now in the CTP it doesn't matter how much CPU your site uses, you will always be charged for one hour even if your site doesn't do anything ?.