Accounts and Billing in Windows Azure SQL Database

A monthly fee is charged for each SQL Database user database that is utilized (master databases do not incur charges). Following are the charges for the SQL Database:

The database fee is amortized over the month and charged daily. The daily fee depends on the peak size that each database reached that day and the maximum number of databases you use. For databases greater than 1 GB, you will be billed in the next whole gigabyte increment. For example, if you utilized two databases, one that was 4.4 GB and one that was 14.4 GB for 1 day during a billing month, you would be charged for a 5 GB and 15 GB database for that day, which would total $2.643. Below are the calculations:

• 5 GB: ($9.99 for the first GB + $3.996 per GB for the next 4 GB) / 31 days = $0.838
  
  
• 15 GB: ($45.954 for the first 10 GB + $1.998 per GB for the next 5 GB) / 31 days = $1.805
  
  
• Total: ($0.838 + $1.805) = $2.643
  
  

For more information about billing, see Windows Azure Pricing Overview.

The Microsoft Online Services Customer Portal is where you purchase subscriptions to the Windows Azure platform and to other Microsoft Online Services. After your purchase is complete, you will receive a confirmation notification in e-mail with instructions for accessing your account in the SQL Database platform.

When you purchase your subscription to the service through Microsoft Online Services Customer Portal, you will be prompted to create a profile for your account owner. The account owner or account administrator is the person who signs up for the SQL Database platform and other Microsoft Online Services. As an account owner, you own the billing relationship with Microsoft. You can log in to the Microsoft Online Services Customer Portal to manage your subscriptions and to the Windows Azure Platform Management Portal to manage your SQL Database servers.

To activate your subscription, you will need to enter contact details for the person in your company who will be responsible for setting up and managing your service. This person is called the service administrator, and is assigned by the account owner. The service administrator defaults to the account owner from your profile, in case your service administrator is the same as your account owner. The service administrator can only access the Management Portal. As soon as activation is complete, an e-mail message is sent to the account owner and the service administrator, outlining the next steps to take.

Bandwidth used between SQL Database and Windows Azure is free within the same sub-region or data center. When designing your system, organize it so that operations incurring large data transfers are within the Windows Azure platform and the same sub-region. When deploying a Windows Azure application, locate the application and the SQL Database within the same sub-region to avoid bandwidth costs.

When you choose a database edition, you also select the MAXSIZE. MAXSIZE provides the ability to limit the size of the database. If the size of the database reaches its MAXSIZE you will receive an error code 40544. When this occurs, you cannot insert or update data, or create new objects (such as tables, stored procedures, views, and functions). However, you can still read and delete data, truncate tables, drop tables and indexes, and rebuild indexes. You can then update MAXSIZE to a value larger than your current database size or delete some data to free storage space. There may be as much as a fifteen-minute delay before you can insert new data. For Web Edition, valid values of MAXSIZE are: 1GB or 5GB. For Business Edition, valid values are: 10GB intervals up to 50 GB, and then 50 GB increments up to 150GB. You are billed for the peak size the database reaches, daily. For example, if you have four Web Edition databases with a MAXSIZE of 1 GB that are each 250 MB, you will be charged $9.99 per month for each database. Database usage is calculated daily, so if you create a database in the middle of the month, you will be charged a prorated fee for that database.

The size of the database includes the data, indexes, and objects. The size does not include logs, system tables, server catalogs, the master database, or additional replicas. If you exceed the storage capacity, the service rejects additional inserts. Your database will not be automatically converted to an edition that supports additional inserts.

The federation root and all its members are part of the server database count and are billed as regular databases. Federation members are physically implemented as individual databases, so each federation member adds to the database count.

Billing During SPLIT and DROP Operations

During a DROP operation, existing databases are used and no transfer of user data is required. The dropped database (federation member) is removed from the SQL Database bill for the server in the next day.

SPLIT operations always create new physical database(s). For example, a SPLIT operation with a single split point, such as ALTER FEDERATION … SPLIT(100), creates 2 new databases (federation members,) and drops the source database when the operation is complete. The new database(s) are not part of your build during the SPLIT operation, however once the operation completes and the database(s) are online, they become part of your bill. Databases that are in a failed state do not appear on your bill.

For both operations the source database (federation member) remains accessible throughout the operation, and will continue to accrue charges as normal.