Fundamental
Prepare and test your skills
Fundamental
Prepare and test your skills
Reusing On-Premises Licenses in Azure with Hybrid Benefit
Free sample question, answered and explained below. The AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam practice bank has 688 more like it. Try 10 free: instant score, no account.
An organization plans to migrate several on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server workloads to Azure Virtual Machines.
The company currently holds active Software Assurance on its existing on-premises licenses and wants to maximize cost savings by reusing those licenses in the cloud rather than paying full pay-as-you-go licensing fees.
Which pricing option should the organization use to reduce their compute costs in Azure?
Explanations
Azure Automation start/stop runbooks
Azure Automation start/stop runbooks
What Azure Automation Start/Stop Runbooks Do
Azure Automation runbooks provide operational automation to schedule recurring maintenance tasks, including automatically starting and stopping virtual machines during non-business hours to reduce compute consumption charges.
Why It Doesn't Meet the Requirement
Automating VM start and stop schedules reduces runtime compute hours for part-time workloads, but it does not apply existing on-premises Software Assurance licenses to reduce the hourly software licensing rate for active servers.
Key Characteristics and Limitations
- Operational scheduling: Focuses on managing operational schedules (e.g., shutting down VMs at night and weekends).
- Compute runtime reduction only: Avoids billing during stopped/deallocated hours, but VMs still incur standard licensing rates during active running hours.
- Not a licensing vehicle: Provides no mechanism to bring or validate on-premises enterprise licenses in Azure.
This Answer Would Be Correct If
The organization had development or testing environments that were only needed during working hours and wanted an automated way to shut down instances overnight.
Additional Context
Automation runbooks manage lifecycle and scheduling efficiency, whereas Azure Hybrid Benefit is a commercial licensing program that lowers the base hourly rate of running workloads.
Azure ExpressRoute private peering
Azure ExpressRoute private peering
What Azure ExpressRoute Is
Azure ExpressRoute is a dedicated, private networking service that connects an organization's on-premises infrastructure directly to Microsoft Azure datacenters via a private connectivity provider, bypassing the public internet.
Why It Doesn't Meet the Requirement
ExpressRoute addresses hybrid network connectivity, bandwidth, and latency requirements. It is a networking infrastructure component and does not provide licensing discounts or permit the reuse of on-premises software licenses in the cloud.
Key Characteristics and Limitations
- Network connectivity: Delivers private, high-speed, and low-latency connections to Azure services.
- Additional infrastructure cost: Incurs separate circuit, gateway, and data egress fees rather than reducing cloud VM licensing costs.
- No licensing function: Has no correlation with Software Assurance or operating system licensing models.
This Answer Would Be Correct If
The company required a private, high-throughput, low-latency network connection between its on-premises datacenters and Azure virtual networks to support hybrid data transfers.
Additional Context
While ExpressRoute establishes hybrid networking connections, Azure Hybrid Benefit governs hybrid software licensing terms.
Azure Spot Virtual Machines
Azure Spot Virtual Machines
What Azure Spot Virtual Machines Are
Azure Spot Virtual Machines provide access to unused Azure compute capacity at deeply discounted rates compared to standard pay-as-you-go pricing.
Why It Doesn't Meet the Requirement
While Spot VMs offer high infrastructure discounts, they are subject to immediate eviction whenever Azure needs the capacity back or when the market price exceeds your configured maximum. Furthermore, Spot VMs do not solve the requirement to leverage existing on-premises Software Assurance licenses for ongoing enterprise production workloads.
Key Characteristics and Limitations
- Eviction risk: Azure can deallocate or delete Spot VM instances with only a 30-second notification when capacity is reclaimed.
- Unsuitable for steady production: Designed primarily for interruptible, stateless, batch processing, or dev/test workloads rather than persistent core servers.
- No licensing reuse mechanism: Does not inherently apply existing on-premises server licensing investments to eliminate OS license surcharges.
This Answer Would Be Correct If
The organization needed deeply discounted, temporary compute capacity for batch processing, rendering, or large-scale stateless simulation workloads that could tolerate unexpected interruptions.
Additional Context
Spot VMs optimize raw infrastructure costs for fault-tolerant workloads, whereas Azure Hybrid Benefit specifically addresses software licensing cost optimization across regular production workloads.
Azure Hybrid Benefit
Azure Hybrid Benefit
What Azure Hybrid Benefit Is
Azure Hybrid Benefit is a licensing offer that helps significantly reduce the costs of running workloads in the cloud. It enables organizations with active Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licenses to apply their existing on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server licenses to Azure Virtual Machines and Azure SQL Database services.
How It Meets the Requirements
- License reuse: Allows the organization to bring existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses directly to Azure IaaS and PaaS environments.
- Cost minimization: Eliminates the operating system and database software licensing costs included in standard pay-as-you-go rates, meaning the company only pays the base compute infrastructure rate.
- Workload support: Seamlessly applies to both Windows Server virtual machines and SQL Server instances deployed in Azure.
Key Advantages and Capabilities
- Substantial savings: Organizations can save up to 40% to 85% when combining Azure Hybrid Benefit with reserved instances.
- Dual-use rights: Provides temporary dual-use rights during migration periods (typically 180 days) so workloads can run on-premises and in Azure simultaneously during transition.
- Broad platform coverage: Applicable to Windows Server, SQL Server, and eligible Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux subscriptions.
- Flexible allocation: Licenses can easily be assigned, reassigned, or converted between virtual machine sizes dynamically via the Azure portal or automation scripts.
Why This Is Optimal
Because the organization already has active Software Assurance on its existing on-premises server licenses, enabling Azure Hybrid Benefit is the most direct and cost-effective mechanism to eliminate recurring software licensing charges in the cloud without purchasing new server software.
Try 10 interactive questions like this one, free
Answer them yourself and get your score the moment you finish. No account needed.
Full access includes
- 688 practice questions across all 3 exam domains
- Every answer explained: why it is right, and why the others are not
- Scout, an AI tutor that answers your follow-up questions
- Readiness tracking by domain, so you know when to book the exam
Related questions
Keep the momentum going with these hand-picked practice scenarios
FundamentalAZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam
Azure Spot Virtual Machines
Compare cloud pricing models
FundamentalAZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam
Azure Reservations Pricing Model
Compare cloud pricing models
FundamentalAZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam
Azure Cost Drivers
Compare cloud pricing models
FundamentalAZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam
Azure Pricing Calculator
Compare cloud pricing models
FundamentalAZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam
Azure Reservations
Compare cloud pricing models
AdvancedAZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Exam
Availability Zones High Availability
Deploy virtual machines to availability zones and availability sets
Last updated Validated