Azure Reservations and Savings Plans

In the ongoing challenge of controlling cloud expenses, many businesses overlook a significant opportunity: Azure Reservations and Savings Plans. These instruments are not merely cost-cutting tools for Managed Service Providers (MSPs); they represent a chance to showcase financial proficiency and foster enduring trust with clients.

By demonstrating to clients that you’ve facilitated savings of 25% to 40% on predictable workloads and providing clear evidence of these benefits, you transition from being a mere technical resource to a trusted cloud investment advisor.

This is the true potential of FinOps-as-a-Service, enhanced by the Turbo360 Cost Analyzer.

The Potential for MSPs

Your clients rely on your cloud expertise not just for functionality, but to ensure that every pound, dollar, or euro they invest is worthwhile.

However, many MSPs encounter challenges such as:

• Lack of coherent visibility into reservation usage
• Challenges in predicting future commitments
• Inadequate reporting on actual versus anticipated savings
• Time-consuming manual evaluations during each renewal cycle

This complexity often leaves potential savings unutilised and customers dissatisfied with inconsistent billing.

Turbo360 offers MSPs the clarity and insights required to manage their commitments effectively across all clients and subscriptions.

Both options offer significant discounts, often reaching up to 40% or more, but they demand insight and diligence to manage proficiently.

This is precisely where Turbo360 comes into play.

How Turbo360 Eases the Management of Reservations and Savings Plans for MSPs

Identifying Unused or Soon-to-Expire Reservations

Turbo360 conducts continuous analysis of reservation and savings plan usage across all customers, identifying:

• Unused or underutilised reservations
• Commitments nearing expiry that could lead to increased costs
• Resources being billed at pay-as-you-go rates, which could be included in a plan

This support enables your team to act promptly, safeguarding customers from unnecessary expenses.

Proposing New Commitment Opportunities

By examining historical usage patterns, Turbo360 can spotlight workloads stable enough for a reservation or savings plan, such as:

• Always-on production VMs
• Core databases
• App Service Plans with consistent utilisation

This insight allows you to proactively present customers with data-driven proposals for savings.

Forecasting ROI on Potential Commitments

Turbo360 enables you to simulate the impact of potential purchases before they are made. You can evaluate:

• Pay-as-you-go versus reserved instance costs
• Length of commitment (1-year vs 3-year)
• Projected usage and potential overcommitment risks

This approach transforms FinOps into a predictive discipline rather than merely a reporting tool.

Monitoring Actual Savings Over Time

Once a commitment is established, Turbo360 keeps track of its usage and the savings realised. You can generate monthly reports showing:

• Monthly savings compared to the baseline
• Utilisation trends over time
• Expired or soon-to-expire commitments that require attention

This level of insight fosters trust and supports commitment renewals.

Centralising Insights Across All Customers

For MSPs managing multiple tenants, Turbo360 serves as a central hub for commitment oversight.

You can filter by:

• Customer or tenant
• Resource group
• Commitment type or duration

This functionality simplifies quarterly business reviews and FinOps reporting, making it scalable and repeatable.

Example: Converting Insights into ROI

Consider a client operating 40 VMs 24/7 across three regions. Turbo360 identifies that 35 of these VMs have demonstrated stable usage for the past six months—ideal candidates for a savings plan.

You can model a 3-year commitment, demonstrating that it will decrease compute costs by 38%, resulting in savings of £5,600 annually.

After making the recommendation and implementing the plan, you can track usage in Turbo360 to validate its effectiveness.

That single action:

• Saves significant funds for the client
• Enhances their confidence in your MSP team
• Provides a compelling case study for your FinOps services

Transforming Commitments into Collaborative Discussions

When customers perceive cost optimisation as part of a trusted advisory relationship, they stop inquiring, “Why is my bill so high?”

Instead, they start asking, “How can we invest more confidently in Azure?”

Here’s how to frame it:

“We don’t just manage your infrastructure; we manage your investments. With Turbo360, we monitor every reservation and plan, ensuring you’re maximising value for every pound spent on the cloud.”

That’s a conversation every CIO wants to engage in.

Key Takeaways

Turbo360: Transforming Commitment Management into a Competitive Edge

With Turbo360, your MSP gains the visibility, forecasting capabilities, and reporting tools necessary for administering reservation and savings plan management at scale.

• Identify waste and missed savings opportunities
• Propose smart commitments
• Continuously track realised ROI for every client
• Build trust through transparency

Coming Soon

Next week: How to Ensure Cloud Cost Management Becomes a Non-Issue for Your Clients

We’ll delve into strategies for effectively communicating value, fostering trust through transparency, and leveraging FinOps collaboration to become a powerful tool for customer retention.