Azure’s 775% recent surge: What does it all mean exactly?

Azure Cloud

By Scott Harvey
Chief Technology Officer, Atmosera

If you’re in Azure or planning to migrate to Azure, you may have recently read in the news that Microsoft Azure has seen a 775% rise in usage. Buried in many of those stories was a little tidbit that needs further unpacking. Based on the demand spike that Microsoft is seeing, they have gone to a prioritization of requests. The very nature of prioritization in high demand scenarios typically means there will be delivery constraints on some level. That is the stark reality. What does it really mean though from an Azure perspective?

What we’ve found is that the constraints appear to be leveled on the Pay as you Go (PAYG) Azure subscriptions. Spin up a PAYG Azure subscription today and you will see that you are limited to 10 vCores per region. This is problematic as not much fits into 10 vCores and this constraint is likely the reason for reports of Azure being full because people cannot effectively deploy to a region. While there may be capacity issues due to the massive surge in Azure usage, as an Azure Expert Managed Service Provider and a Tier I Cloud Solution Partner (CSP) with Microsoft, I can say that when Atmosera creates a subscription for a customer via our CSP, we are not affected by the 10 vCore limit. We are able to leverage 350 vCores that have been typically allowed per region in a subscription.

What does it all mean? What appears to be happening is that Microsoft is de-prioritizing the PAYG or non-corporate/non-business subscriptions in favor of more business-oriented Azure subscription channels. The concern is that many businesses leverage PAYG subscription as they are either not large enough for an enterprise agreement or they haven’t moved to a CSP. These businesses may get caught unable to scale, allocate, or deploy as they had intended during this time as Microsoft manages through its incredible Azure demand rush. What it means is that Microsoft continues to prioritize Azure Expert MSPs and CSPs like Atmosera who deploy and manage Azure infrastructure supporting mission-critical applications and the insurgence of work-from-home service functionality like Windows Virtual Desktop.

To learn more about Atmosera’s managed Azure Services or how we can help, contact us today.

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