Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows
server allows you to use your on premises
Windows server licenses and run
Windows virtual machines in Azure at a reduced cost.
You can use your licenses for Windows Server 2008 R2,
Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2,
and Windows Server 2016.
The Azure Hybrid Benefit for
Windows Server is applicable
to Windows Server standard and
data center additions as well as
other versions obtained via custom images.
>>With Azure Hybrid benefit for Windows Server,
you can save up to 49% on Windows Server
virtual machines by paying only the base Compute Rates,
adding value to your software assurance
investments and if you combine
this benefit with Azure
reserved instances you can
save up to 80% percent in total.
Azure Hybrid Benefit makes
Azure the most cost effective cloud destination for
your Windows Server virtual machines and
this benefit is available across all Azure regions.
>>In this video, we'll look at how to use
the Azure portal to enable the Azure Hybrid Benefit for
Windows Server on
new and existing Azure virtual
machines and then we'll look at
how to use PowerShell to enable
Azure Hybrid Benefits across
multiple virtual machines at once.
So, let's take a look at how to use the Azure portal
to enable Azure Hybrid Benefit on a new virtual machine.
I go through the normal process of
creating a Windows virtual machine.
I'm going to use Windows Server 2016 but again it
can be any version from 2008 R2.
When I start to create that virtual machine I
fill out the fields and you'll notice there's
a section here at the bottom that
asks you if you already have a Windows license.
Go ahead and say yes confirm it and that's it.
As you complete creating the virtual machine it
will automatically add that
Azure Hybrid Benefits to the virtual machine.
That's the process for enabling Azure Hybrid Benefits on
a new virtual machine from the Azure marketplace.
Now, let's say you've brought
a virtual machine from on prem or from another provider.
The process for enabling
Azure Hybrid Benefit is very much the same.
Let's go to my set of images now.
I've already uploaded an image from my on
premises servers into
Azure virtual machine image and now I want
to create a new virtual machine in Azure
from that image but I want to
still use the Azure Hybrid Benefit.
I find the image in the list of
images and I say I want to create a VM from this image.
And again the system will come up in the
with the create virtual machine wizard or
fill out the forms and it will also have
the sections here that says do
I already have a windows license.
I say yes. I tell it what
my Windows server or Windows client and that
will enable Azure Hybrid Benefit on
that new virtual machine
that you've brought from on premises.
You can also use the Azure portal to enable
Azure Hybrid Benefits on
VMs that you already have running in Azure.
In this screen, I have a list
of virtual machines in this subscription.
I want to find out which virtual machines
have Azure Hybrid Benefit enabled and which do not.
Lets edit the columns that are
visible and lets expose the azure hybrid benefit column.
That allows me to
quickly see that none of the windows
virtual machines in this subscription
have Azure Hybrid Benefit applied to them.
Let's go ahead and turn it on
on one of these virtual machines.
I'm going to click to see the details on one of
my virtual machines and go to the configuration tab.
The configuration tab has the option to enable
Azure Hybrid Benefit for that particular virtual machine.
I'll say yes, confirm that I have
the appropriate licenses available
through my software assurance and hit save.
Once the system has successfully
enabled Azure Hybrid Benefit,
I should be able to go back to
my list and see that indeed
yes Azure Hybrid Benefit has been
applied to that virtual machine.
We used the Azure portal to enable
Azure Hybrid Benefit on virtual machines individually but
it's helpful to use something like PowerShell or
some other scripting language to enable
Azure Hybrid Benefit across
many virtual machines at once.
I'm going to open the Azure Cloud Shell.
Now, the Azure Cloud Shell opens up
a PowerShell or bass session inside
the Azure portal but of course
you can also use your local PowerShell session as well.
We're first going to tell PowerShell
which subscription we want to do work on.
Let's see how we use PowerShell to see
which virtual machines have
Azure Hybrid Benefit enabled and which do not.
This command says for this subscription,
let's look at all the virtual machines where
the operating system is windows
and the license type is not Windows Server,
it does not have the Azure Hybrid Benefit
applied and you'll see it came back and say here
are the four virtual machines
and this subscription that do
not and of course that matches what we see in the portal.
Now that we see
which virtual machines do not
have Azure Hybrid Benefit applied,
we can write a script
to enable it on all those virtual machines.
This bit of PowerShall here says,
for each virtual machine that does
not have Azure Hybrid Benefit applied,
go ahead and set the license type to
Windows Server and update
the virtual machine to apply it.
There we go. Once that command is
completed you'll see that
the Azure Hybrid Benefit has been
applied to all the applicable machines
in that subscription
and of course we can refresh
the Azure portal and
see the changes have been applied there as well.
Visit this URL to learn
more about Azure Hybrid Benefit for
Windows Server and how to enable
it in your subscription. Thank you.