Manage Cloud Software License Costs

In the Service Portal, you can determine whether your deployed Azure VMs, AWS EC2 instances, and Azure SQL database instances are configured so that you may use Windows Server or SQL Server license entitlements that you already have. If you then apply existing entitlements to those cloud resources, you can save software licensing fees.

For example, if you use Microsoft's Software Assurance (SA), and you have existing license entitlements for Windows Server or SQL Server, you can apply them to deployed Windows VMs or Azure SQL databases that use Azure Hybrid Benefit.

Similarly, for AWS, you can use License Mobility through SA to apply license entitlements to deployed EC2 instances. For example, if you have non-Amazon Marketplace Images (that is, custom images) that use shared tenancy, you could move your EC2 instances to a dedicated host and use your existing license entitlements.

Through the Service Portal, you can also enable or disable the Azure Hybrid Benefit for your Azure VMs running Windows Server and your Azure SQL databases.

What you can see and do in the Service Portal depends on the permissions associated with the role that your administrator has assigned you. It may also depend on whether you've been granted ownership of services, deployed resources, or virtual services. Unless otherwise noted, the provided procedures assume that you have the highest level of permissions and ownership of relevant resources and virtual services.