Microsoft Azure Hybrid Benefit now available for Linux customers in India

Microsoft on Thursday announced the general availability of its Azure Hybrid Benefit, a licensing benefit that helps to significantly reduce the costs of running workloads in the cloud, for Linux customers across India.

The Azure Hybrid Benefit helps businesses seamlessly migrate on-premises Software Assurance-enabled Windows Server and SQL Server licenses, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) virtual machines (VMs) to Microsoft Azure. The solution enables a significant reduction in the cost of running workloads on-the-cloud by converting existing PAYG (pay-as-you-go) virtual machines (VMs) to bring-your-own-subscription (BYOS) billing.

The solution

• Saves time with seamless post-deployment conversions as there's no need for production redeployment
• Lowers ongoing operational costs with automatic image maintenance, updates, and patches
• Enables user interface integration with the Azure command line interface (CLI)
• Provides technical support and end-to-end hybrid cloud operations management

Furthermore, while migrating servers, the Azure Hybrid Benefit provides 180 days of dual-use rights to help businesses maintain on-premises operations.

"Using Azure Hybrid Benefit businesses can achieve the lowest cost of ownership by combining reservations savings and extended security updates. By adopting Microsoft Azure for their cloud journeys, businesses can meet their on-the-cloud requirements, build new expertise, and successfully achieve more business value. Organizations can also effectively plan their cloud roadmap by optimizing the Azure environment as per their workload for scale, security, governance, networking, and identity," Microsoft said.