Understand how the Red Hat Linux Enterprise software reservation plan discount is applied for Azure

After you buy a Red Hat Linux plan, the discount is automatically applied to deployed Red Hat virtual machines (VMs) that match the reservation. A Red Hat Linux plan covers the cost of running the Red Hat software on an Azure VM.

To buy the right Red Hat Linux plan, you need to understand what Red Hat VMs you run and the number of vCPUs on those VMs. Use the following sections to help identify from your usage CSV file what plan to buy.

Discount applies to different VM sizes

Like Reserved VM Instances, Red Hat plan purchases offer instance size flexibility. This means that your discount applies even when you deploy a VM with a different vCPU count. The discount applies to different VM sizes within the software plan.

The discount amount depends on the VM vCPU ratio listed at Instance size flexibility ratio for VMs. Use the ratio value to calculate how many VM instances get the Red Hat Linux plan discount.

For example, if you buy a plan for Red Hat Linux Enterprise Server for a VM with 1 to 4 vCPUs, the ratio for that reservation is 1. The discount covers the Red Hat software cost for:

  • 1 deployed VMs with 1 to 4 vCPUs,
  • or 0.46 or about 46% of Red Hat Enterprise Linux costs for a VM with 5 or more vCPUs.

For more information to Review RedHat VM usage before you buy

Next steps

To learn more about reservations, see the following articles:

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