Azure Reserved Instances - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Azure Reserved Instances

📖 Scenario: You are managing cloud costs for a small company using Microsoft Azure. You want to save money by reserving virtual machines (VMs) for one year instead of paying for them on-demand.Reserved Instances (RIs) let you commit to using VMs for a set time and get a discount.

🎯 Goal: Create an Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template that defines a Reserved Instance purchase for a specific VM size and region.This will help you understand how to configure Azure Reserved Instances to reduce costs.

📋 What You'll Learn

Define a resource of type Microsoft.Capacity/reservationOrders with a specific name.

Add a nested resource of type reservations inside the reservation order.

Set the reserved VM size to Standard_DS1_v2 and location to eastus.

Specify the term as P1Y and quantity as 1.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Companies use Azure Reserved Instances to save money by committing to use virtual machines for a fixed period, reducing their cloud costs significantly.

💼 Career

Cloud engineers and architects often create and manage ARM templates to automate infrastructure deployment and cost optimization strategies like Reserved Instances.

1

Create the reservation order resource

Create a resource called reservationOrder of type Microsoft.Capacity/reservationOrders with the name myReservationOrder.

Azure

# Define the reservation order resource
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the type and name properties to define the reservation order resource.

2

Add the reservations nested resource

Inside the reservationOrder resource, add a nested resource of type reservations with the name myReservation.

Azure

{
  "type": "Microsoft.Capacity/reservationOrders",
  "apiVersion": "2021-10-01",
  "name": "myReservationOrder",
  "properties": {},
  "resources": [
    # Add the reservations nested resource here
  ]
}

Need a hint?

Use the resources array inside the reservation order to add the nested reservation resource.

3

Configure the reserved instance properties

Inside the myReservation resource, set the properties to specify reservedResourceType as VirtualMachines, instanceFlexibility as Off, term as P1Y, quantity as 1, sku as {"name": "Standard_DS1_v2"}, and location as eastus.

Azure

{
  "type": "Microsoft.Capacity/reservationOrders",
  "apiVersion": "2021-10-01",
  "name": "myReservationOrder",
  "properties": {},
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "reservations",
      "apiVersion": "2021-10-01",
      "name": "myReservation",
      "properties": {
        # Set reserved instance properties here
      }
    }
  ]
}

Need a hint?

Set the properties inside the nested reservation resource to configure the reserved instance details.

4

Complete the ARM template with schema and content version

Wrap the resource definition inside an ARM template JSON with $schema set to https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json# and contentVersion set to 1.0.0.0. Place the reservation order resource inside the resources array.

Azure

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "resources": [
    # Add the reservation order resource here
  ]
}

Need a hint?

Wrap your resource inside the ARM template structure with $schema, contentVersion, and resources.