What is Azure Dedicated Host?

1. Pre-requisite Knowledge –

Before we start with the understanding of what is Microsoft Azure Dedicated Host, we should know –

• Basic knowledge of cloud computing and its services
• Basic knowledge of Microsoft Azure
• Basic knowledge of Virtual Machine

2. Introduction of Microsoft Azure Dedicated Host –

In simple words, it is A dedicated physical server to host your Azure virtual machine(s) for Windows and Linux. Meaning, Azure's dedicated host provides physical servers to host one or more virtual machines. It is dedicated to your organization and not shared with other customers. BUT the beauty of a dedicated host is it allows Linux as well as Windows virtual machines on single-tenant physical servers. Being dedicated servers for our organization, it also helps to mention the organizational compliance and regulatory requirements security, data integrity, etc.

We can use existing windows license in Azure dedicated host servers to save the cost. We can deploy as many Windows Server virtual machines as you like on the host, subject only to the physical capacity of the underlying server.

We can create Azure dedicated host and its group (host groups) and allocated to virtual machines during the virtual machine creation. We can use a variety of deployment options to leverage this service such as Azure portal, CLI, power shell commands or ARM templates.

Image Source – Microsoft Docs

• Host group – It represents the collection of dedicated hosts.
• Host – It belongs under the host group and mapped to Azure physical server.

Tangible benefits of this service are –

1. • It helps to address the corporate compliance and regulatory requirements.
   • We have more control over the servers to select the CPU, number of cores, etc.
   • We have the choice to decide the maintenance of the servers like OS patching, hardware/software reboots, etc.
   • It helps to reduce the cost by using existing on-premise software licenses.
   • It has no upfront cost, no termination fees and pays as we use model. Users are charged per dedicated host, regardless of how many VMs are deployed.
   • It helps to isolate the physical servers rather than shared ones.

Please note that this service is new and is in preview mode as dated 22^nd August 2019.

3. Azure dedicated host pricing
4. Reference Links –

• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/virtual-machines/dedicated-host/
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/services/virtual-machines/dedicated-host/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/dedicated-hosts

Conclusion - In this article, we have learned the overview of Microsoft Azure Dedicated Host.