Reservations Management
Partners have trouble knowing if they have purchased the right amount of Reserved Instances (RIs) and AHB at any given time. Nerdio Manager's Reservation Management feature helps partners purchase RIs, keep a track of RIs, monitor RI utilization, and generate reminder alerts to renew Reservations on time.
Reserved Instances are a great way to save money on Azure costs for resources that are often running. After purchasing a Reserved Instance, reservation discounts are automatically applied to the resources that match the RI attributes, with no manual assignment needed.
Prerequisites
Before you can purchase Reservations within Nerdio Manager, there are a few setup items that need to be completed.
Tenant Setup
Nerdio Manager requires Customer Permissions to purchase Reserved Instances. You also need a user with Reservation Administrator and Subscription Owner roles to authorize Nerdio Manager to purchase Reservations.
Purchasing Reservations within Nerdio Manager is limited to certain scenarios and Azure Subscription types. Pay-As-You-Go subscriptions and CSP subscriptions are currently supported. CSP Subscriptions require your CSP to allow Customer Permissions to buy their own services or resources. Reach out to your Cloud Solution Provider to confirm if this is supported.
The ability to purchase Reservations through Nerdio Manager is supported in the following scenarios:
Tier 1 Cloud Service Providers.
Tier 2 Cloud Service Providers whose distributor allows for Self-Service purchase of Reserved Instances.
Pax8 has confirmed support for Self-Service purchase of Reserved Instances.
Contact your distributor to confirm if they support Self-Service purchase of Reserved Instances.
Pay-as-you-go Subscriptions.
Customer Permissions
By default, these customer permissions are turned off within the Partner Center. You must enable these customer permissions.
To enable customer permissions:
Sign in to the Partner Center with a user assigned the Admin Agent role for the customer you want to enable.
Navigate to the Customer’s Account page.
In the Customer Permissions section, select Edit.
Allow customers to purchase Azure Reservations.
Reservation Administrator Permissions
The Reservation Administrator role needs to be assigned to the account that you use to authorize Nerdio Manager to manage your customer reservations.
To assign reservation administrator permissions:
Log in to the Azure portal using an account with Global Admin permissions.
Navigate to Microsoft Entra ID.
In Overview, make a note of the Object ID of the user you intend to use to authorize Nerdio Manager.
In the upper right corner, select the Azure Cloud Shell icon.
If asked, select PowerShell and select your subscription.
Copy the following command.
New-AzRoleAssignment -Scope "/providers/Microsoft.Capacity" -PrincipalId <EntraId User ObjectId> -RoleDefinitionName "Reservations Administrator"
Replace <EntraID User ObjectID> with the Object ID of the user noted previously.
Execute the command.
Note: If you receive a Forbidden error, you need to elevate access to manage all Azure subscriptions and management groups. See this Microsoft learn article for further information.
Nerdio Manager Authorization
Nerdio Managerneeds authorization to manage Reserved Instances on customer subscriptions.
To authorize Nerdio Manager to purchase RIs:
Sign in to Nerdio Manager with a user who has been granted Subscription Owner and Reservation Administrator roles for the customer subscription you want to manage.
At the Account level, navigate to Settings > Integrations.
In the Reserved Instance Management tile, select Authorize.
Select Login.
Complete the Entra ID Sign In and Consent on behalf of your organization and then select Accept.
Once consent has been granted, in the Reserved Instance Management tile, select Disabled.
Review the confirmation pop-up and select OK.
Reservation Management is now enabled for the account.
Purchase Reservations
Reservations can be purchased separately from the customer’s Azure settings page, or when purchasing resources.
Note: Purchasing Reservations requires the Nerdio Manager user to have the Accounts.Reservations.Purchase role assigned to their user.
Purchase Separately
You can purchase Reservations separately.
To purchase reservations separately:
In Nerdio Manager, at the Account level, navigate to Settings > Azure.
Scroll down to the Reservations section and select Purchase.
Enter the following information:
Name: Type an appropriate name for the Reservation.
Term: Select the term of the Reservation.
Note: Longer terms offer more savings, but at a higher lifetime cost.
Billing Plan: Select the billing plan.
Auto renew: Select this option to automatically purchase a new reservation on the expiration date.
Subscription: From the drop-down list, select the billing subscription.
Region: From the drop-down list, select the region.
Note: Reservations are limited to Azure regions.
VM Series: From the drop-down list, select the VM size (product) for the Reservation.
Subscription: From the drop-down list, select the data center or region you specified when you purchased the Reservation.
Note: By default, Nerdio Manager utilizes Instance Size Flexibility to apply RIs to VMs within the same series. For example, if you buy an RI for a D2s_v3, but update the matching to resource to a D4s_v3, the reservation still applies
Quantity: Type the number of RIs to purchase.
Once you have entered all the desired information, select Purchase.
Purchase When Deploying New Resource
When you are deploying a new resource, you also have the option to purchase a Reservation. Nerdio Manager purchases a reservation that matches the VM size, region, and quantity of the resources that you are adding. You simply need to provide a Name, Term, and Billing Plan to complete the purchase. For example, when adding a host to a host pool, you can purchase a reservation:
Track Reservations
Tracking Reservations and ensuring that they are properly utilized is key to getting the most value out of your Reserved Instances.
Note: Viewing Reservations requires theNerdio Manager users must be assigned the Accounts.Reservations.Read role.
To track Reservations:
In Nerdio Manager, at the Account level, navigate to Settings > Azure.
Scroll down to the Reservations section to track Reservations.
Note: The Utilization rate show a percentage of how utilized the Reservations are. Generally, you want the utilization rate to be as close to 100% as possible. If your utilization rate is higher than 100%, it may be cost effective to purchase additional reservations. If your utilization rate is lower than 100%, you may have too many reservations and it may be cost effective to return reservations. Microsoft only offers returns in specific scenarios. Review the Self-service exchanges and refunds for Azure Reservations - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft Learn article for information regarding returning reservations.
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