I have an Azure Cloud Service published at Microsoft and it's draining all my credit!
Payment
Pay as you go
Service resource
Minimal resource, 1 SMALL web role and 1 SMALL worker role.
I knew Azure wasn't cheap, but this is just too much. Currently my monthly cost is just under 80 USD. The only person that use this service is me, noone else, and I barely use it. So the cost is just for the upkeep.
Is this normal?
70 bucks a month!? How much does it cost for YOU?
What Microsoft support told me
I am afraid the Cloud Services has a fixed price, and I am not aware how it could be lowered. Maybe you want to check on how the service itself could be tweaked to get it working as per your needs. You may want to go through the Community Forum for that.
Community = Stackoverflow, so here I am!
If I look at my Azure subscription page I can see that it's the:
CALCULATING HOURS - Europe, Western
That is taking all my hard earned money. My service also uses SQL, storage and cache but, if I understand it correctly, these are not the cause for my expensive bill.
Before I leave you to it I just want to say that I can't use a simple web app because of my requirements. I know web apps are super cheap, but in this case I must use a cloud service..
Thank you
Update
I found out I was using A1 (small) and not A0 (extra small). The instance type for a cloudservice can be set in the servicedefinition file.
It's sad that not even Microsoft themselves could inform me about this.
Web and worker roles are like dedicated VMs if they are on, they will cost you money.
You can do one of two things
1) Stop the machines when no one is using them ( say in the off business hours). I am not sure if this is possible to do or not in your case. But if it is possible, you can run a small script to start/ stop the roles. You can even do so via apps on your phone. For example - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/azure-management/id826446897?mt=8
2) Move to Azure Web Apps and Azure Web Jobs - Both these services are "multi-tenant" and cost much less and in fact offer a free tier. If and when you need to scale, you can always scale as your need
Hope this helps