Q&A: Do I get charged compute hours for every role in my Windows Azure Hosted Service?

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.

Permalink

[Check out my other QandAs]

A common question I get is “Do I get charged compute hours for every role type in my service?”

The short answer is “Yes you do”. Now for the longer answer…

Every role type is created as at least one Virtual Machine instance on the Windows Azure Platform – more if you have instance count > 1 for a role.

In this hosted service example I have  2 WebRoles and 3 WorkerRoles with 1 instance of each.

image

Which means I will have 5 Virtual Machines reserved for this service the moment I deploy.

Capture

Therefore in a 24 hour period of being deployed I will get charged 24 x 5 Compute Hours = 120 hours. I left it like this for a a little over a day and a half. Hence I was charged 120 + 60 = 180 hours. (NB: Billing currently appears to update every 12 hours)

billing

Hopefully that should make things clearer. Role consolidation is your friend :-)

Related Links:

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.

Permalink