Azure Terminology

by
Rob Sanfilippo

by
Rob Sanfilippo

Before joining Directions on Microsoft, Rob worked at Microsoft for 14 years where he designed technologies for Microsoft products and... more

Microsoft uses many specialized terms to describe aspects of Azure, such as the customer agreement types, the structure of deployments, the geographical layout of datacenters, fault tolerance and scaling options, and service entities and identities. The terminology has evolved since Azure debuted, and an understanding of the current terms can help organizations plan and communicate about Azure deployments.

Customer Types and Licensing

Microsoft categorizes Azure customers by how they are licensed and billed. Agreement types and other aspects of Azure purchasing include the following:

Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers are large organizations that typically agree to prepay a minimum level of annual Azure spending (see Azure Prepayment below), which they may not fully consume. EA customers usually have extensive hierarchical Azure deployments.

Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) is a license type that can be simpler to construct and negotiate than an EA, especially for customers that are only purchasing cloud-based services. MCAs are gradually replacing EAs for most customers; however, the terms of an MCA could allow Microsoft to audit previous spend and charge retroactively for shortfalls in Azure billing, such as Azure Hybrid Benefit usage that was not in compliance.