Purchasing Azure Services for Production Use

• Several options are available for organizations to purchase Azure services.
• How an organization purchases Azure services affects how and when they must pay and could affect accounting options.
• How an organization purchases Azure services affects their ability to manage Azure resources across the organization.
• Enterprise Agreement customers should be cautious about overestimating their Azure use to avoid nonrefundable overpayments.

Azure, Microsoft’s collection of hosted services and storage for use by developers and IT staff, can be purchased several ways. Purchasing Azure in conjunction with an organization’s volume licensing agreements can provide some benefits and could offer tax benefits, depending on accounting interpretation. However, it is also likely to result in longer-term financial obligations, particularly if the organization finds that it overestimated the volume of Azure services that would be consumed during the life of the agreement.