Offering Azure Reserved Instances (RI) is right on the money in terms of customer demand… and a great opportunity for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)s… but it’s not without its challenges

How can you help your customers gain without the pain?

A great new opportunity…

Microsoft recently announced that Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances (RI) would be made available immediately through its Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program. Great news for end customers, and a truly attractive proposition. By taking advantage of RIs for predictable, persistent cloud workloads, end customers can now purchase, or “reserve”, a virtual machine (VM) for one, two, or three years—saving themselves up to 72%, compared with just using Azure VM on a pay-as-you-go basis. And it’s a move that’s right on the money for partners too: they can now acquire, provision, and manage commercial customer Azure RI and Server Subscriptions through the Microsoft Partner Center and Azure Portal—tapping into the rocketing demand for smarter cloud services, broadening their offering, and boosting and smoothing revenue streams.

…but not without its challenges

Hang on though; take a minute before you uncork the champagne. You need to think things through carefully… otherwise you could end up with more pain than gain. Providing RIs isn’t as straightforward as some of the simpler sides of Azure. In fact, there are several aspects that make the proposition more complex than it sounds at first sight:

• Billing and the delivery of the RIs has to happen as two separate processes—and they’re managed from different systems
• There’s no opportunity for resellers or direct customers to do self-fulfillment when they purchase an RI—CSPs have to be involved
• Keeping your product catalogue up to scratch can be a marathon. Microsoft is constantly updating its offering, and you’ll need to commit to doing the same—at least monthly.

The interworks.cloud platform to the rescue

At interworks.cloud we’re constantly identifying and delivering new integrations to make sure you can offer your customers a full portfolio of cloud-based services. And a service like Azure RI is where our award-winning automation platform really comes into its own. interworks.cloud’s automated billing and provisioning services solution means you’ll be able to deliver Reserved Instances to customers easily and instantly. First, our complexity-busting purchase wizard makes 24/7 purchasing a breeze: by following just a few simple steps, your customers will be able to easily buy any Reserved Instance. Then, there’ll be no more detective work and head scratching as you try to keep your catalog up-to-date—you’ll be able to do it at the click of a button. What’s more, our powerful back office functionality can take the administrative complexities of selling RI in its stride. All this means you’ll be able to focus on high-added-value activities instead, fully secure in the knowledge that the interworks.cloud platform is giving your customers the convenience they need—steaming through the automatic ordering, provisioning, and invoicing of all RIs and letting them exchange one RI with another, of equal or greater value, as they realize just how attractive the new service is.

What’s more, by choosing the interworks.cloud platform, you’ll be centralizing all your CSP activities in one place. That means you can cross-sell all your other cloud services too—generating a “multiplier” effect every time a new or existing customer comes to you for RIs.

Interested? Find out more and take an easy step to ensuring your business is on the cutting edge of the latest Azure trends.