Ordering an Azure Plan Reservation from Storefront

Owned by Panagiotis Papanastasiou
Last updated: Sept 10, 2021
10 min read

For a customer or reseller to purchase an Azure Plan Reservation he will need first to have an active Azure Plan Subscription. The purchase process is initiated from the available action in Azure Plan subscription details page.

"Buy a Reservation" Action

The ordering process can be initiated from the "Buy a Reservation" action that is available from the "I want to.." menu of an Azure Plan subscription (in both the subscriptions list and the subscription details page).

This action is available:

  1. Only for active or "pending for cancellation" Azure Plan subscription(s) that have been successfully provisioned in Microsoft partner center (i.e. their provisioning synchronization status is "synchronized"). 
  2. When the Azure Plan Reserved Instance product is published to Storefront.

Azure Plan Reservations Ordering Wizard

The ordering wizard consists of two steps:

  1. The 1st step is for selecting the Azure Plan Reservation you want to purchase.
  2. The 2nd step is for defining the scope of the Azure Plan Reservation.


Catalog Preparation

Initially, the system will prepare the catalog of the available Azure Plan Reservations. This step may take a few minutes.

Selecting the Reservation Type

The user must first select the Type of the Azure Plan Reservation he wants to buy. The available types are:

  1. Virtual Machine
  2. SQL Database
  3. SQL Data Warehouse
  4. Cosmos DB
  5. Azure Databricks
  6. App Services
  7. Managed Disks
  8. Storage Reserved Capacity
  9. Data Explorer
  10. Database for MySQL
  11. Database for MariaDB
  12. Database for PostgreSQL

  13. Azure Redis Cache Premium

Selecting the Product Category

Upon selecting the "Reservation Type", the user must then select the type of the Azure Plan Product Category he wants to order. The available categories are derivatives of the "Reservation Type" selection options. This extra filter field was introduced to avoid long loading times and occasional connection time-outs, when the list of all the available RI products was loading.

Search Filters

Upon selecting the "Product Category", a list of search fields will be displayed for helping the user to identify the Azure Plan Reservation he is looking for. The list of filters vary depending on the "Reservation Type":

  • Virtual Machine Reservation Type. The available filters are Data Center, Terms, Category, Cores and RAM.
    • Data Center: A list of Microsoft data centers. It is a compulsory field and upon defining it, the system will load a list with all the available Azure Plan Reservations for the selected data center.
    • Terms: 1 or 3 years term.
    • Category: The Azure Plan Reservation categories like "compute-optimized", "general purpose" etc. 
    • Cores and RAM. Filters for defining the Cores and RAM of the Azure Plan Reservation. 
  • SQL Database, SQL Data Warehouse, App Services, Storage Reserved Capacity and Azure Redis Cache Premium Reservation Types: The available filters are Data Center and Terms. 
  • Cosmos DB, Azure Databricks, Data Explorer Reservation Types: There is only the Terms filter. 
  • Managed Disks, Database for MySQL, Database for MariaDB, Database for PostgreSQL Reservation types: There is only the Data Center filter. 

List of Available Azure Plan Reservations

The list of available Azure Plan Reservations is loaded based on the filters the users selected and the country of the customer. Since Microsoft has rules where some Azure Plan Reservation SKUs can be sold only to specific countries, we filter the list of the available reservations based on the country of the customer. Our system is aware of the customer country from the Azure Plan subscription the Storefront user selected for initiating the ordering process.
For each Azure Plan Reservation we display the following information:

  • The product description which is the Microsoft SKU title and description.
  • The product's quantity to be ordered.
  • The unit price which is calculated dynamically, based on the Microsoft's original cost in USD which is then converted by the Microsoft's Foreign Exchange Rate to the Storefront user's currency and then the markup or margin you have defined is applied in order to form the displayed unit price. If you have selected the taxation to be included in the Storefront prices, the unit price will include also the taxes.

Searching for a Specific Azure Plan Reservation

The ordering wizard includes a search box where the user will be able to search for a specific Azure Plan reservation either by its product name(title) or by its product description(subtitle). This search works in combination with the selected filters meaning that the search will be executed against the displayed set of products.
 

Selecting the Azure Plan Reservation

You can purchase only one Azure Plan Reservation by selecting the radio next to the item and defining the quantity you want.

Selecting Billing Frequency (when applicable)

The Billing Frequency option in Marketplace's Reserved Instance ordering wizard appears only if the product allows monthly payments and the selected Azure Plan product (SKU) is supported for both One-Time and Monthly billing frequency by Microsoft, otherwise, the reservation will get paid by a one-time upfront payment. In case the "Billing Frequency" checkbox, located within the chosen Azure Plan products' options is set to false, then the option Billing Frequency will not be displayed on the Storefront Reserved Instances ordering wizard.

Once the user selects a specific product that supports "Monthly" payments, a new section with title "Please, select the preferred billing frequency" is displayed having the Billing Frequency drop-down menu. By default, the "Billing Frequency" drop-down is set to "One-Time".

As the names suggest, the One-Time Billing Frequency option is used for paying the whole order cost of a chosen Azure Plan Reserved Instance product (SKU) in advance, whereas the Monthly Billing Frequency option is used for dividing the whole order cost of a chosen Azure Plan Reserved Instance product in equal monthly parts(called terms).

For example, if the chosen Azure Plan Reserved Instance product (SKU) has a billing period of one year and the monthly billing frequency is allowed by Microsoft and enabled for that product in BSS billing options, then by choosing the Monthly Billing Frequency, the product cost price (i.e. 1000 USD) will be divided into 12 months (terms). 

When you finish with the choice of Billing Frequency, you are presented to the last section of the ordering page, named "What You Pay".

Payment Analysis of Azure Plan Reservation

The analysis of what the user will pay is displayed in the "What You Pay" section, after you have chosen the Azure Plan Reservation as well as its quantity and Billing Frequency(when applicable).
If you want to purchase more Azure Plan Reservations you need to run this process for each reservation.
In the following exemplary cases you can examine both cases (One-Time & Monthly Billing Frequency) of the results being displayed inside the "What you Pay" section.

  • One-Time Payment

    In the following exemplary case the One-Time "Billing Frequency" is used, which depicts the Total cost that will be charged once, based on that order, after the discounts and VAT have been applied.


  • Monthly Payment

    In the following exemplary case the Monthly "Billing Frequency" is used (when applicable), which depicts the first monthly installment from the twelve(1 year) or thirty six (3 years) installments(terms) of the total cost that will be charged based on that order, after the discounts have been applied.

    Upon clicking the  icon you are introduced to the Unit Price - Analysis in which there is an explanation of how the derivative (term) number came from the total cost; (by dividing the total cost with the number of SKU terms [months]).

    Viewing the Full Monthly Fixed Charges Plan Before Purchasing

    If you have chosen the Monthly "Billing Frequency" option then, within the "What You Pay" section of the ordering page there is a link named "view the charges plan" (located above the "Total Reservation's Cost" estimated amount) which by clicking it a popup window opens illustrating all the scheduled charges (Date + Amounts).

    The two columns are: one for charge date and one for charge estimated amount. The date reflects the charge dates and the amount is the monthly fixed charges. The date format is displayed according to logged-in user's date format while the amount is displayed according to the account's culture.


After you have verified your choices, you may proceed by clicking the "Next Step>>" button.

Setting the Scope of the Azure Plan Reservation

By pressing the "Next Step" button the user will be redirected to the 2nd step of the wizard, the "Product Settings" step, for defining the scope of the selected Azure Plan Reservation. The scope option for Azure Plan Reservations will always be Shared, meaning that the Azure Plan Reservation will be provisioned with a shared scope in Microsoft systems.

Setting a Friendly Name for your Azure Plan Reservation

In the Product Settings step you can also define a friendly name for your Azure Plan Reservation. Since this name will be used also for the creation of the Azure Plan Reservation in Microsoft system, it must comply with Microsoft naming rules: It must be between 1 - 55 characters and to include only alphanumeric characters, underscores () and hyphens ( - ) characters are allowed._
By default, we suggest a friendly name that complies with Microsoft rules, but if you change it and you enter an invalid name you will receive the following warning:

Checkout Process

By pressing "Proceed to checkout", an item will be added in the basket for the selected Azure Plan Reservation.

Azure Plan Reservation Basket Item

The information we display for an Azure Plan Reservation in the basket is presented within the following example:
The "Unit Price" column appears in the form of Amount/Instance, as depicted by the following two tabs, which represent the two different billing frequencies during the checkout process. 


By clicking the "Checkout>>" button you proceed towards the provisioning as well as the invoice creation of the chosen Azure Plan Reservation Instance.

Basket Rules and Checks

  • The "change" action is not available for Azure Plan Reservation items. You can only remove it from the basket and re-start the process from the beginning.
  • The "end customer" step is not displayed if you have added an Azure Plan Reservation in your basket, since from the related subscription the end customer is known. 
  • If your reseller has added in the basket two or more reservation instances for different end-customers, he will receive the alert "Your basket items are associated with subscriptions of more than one customer. Checkout is disabled" and he will not be able to complete the checkout.
  • Your reseller can have more than one Azure Plan Reservations in the basket if all items are for the same end customer.

Provisioning an Azure Plan Reservation

Before completing the checkout, we will do again a check if the selected Azure Plan subscription has been registered for purchasing an Azure Plan Reservation. If it is successfully registered, we will proceed with the provisioning of the Azure Plan Reservation in Microsoft systems. We will also create an asset record that will represent in our system the purchased Azure Plan Reservation.

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