{"id":3944,"date":"2017-08-16T06:38:22","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T13:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/?p=3944"},"modified":"2025-06-13T19:28:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T02:28:48","slug":"azure-getting-started-easy-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/azure-getting-started-easy-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Azure: Getting Started is Easy and Free"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Azure is where Microsoft is spending a lot of its efforts lately. Microsoft is dedicated to making Azure a success. As someone who started working with Azure a little in the early days, I can say that it&#8217;s come a long way, and offers a remarkable set of services at good prices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>But not everyone is on board with Azure or even with cloud computing yet. If you haven&#8217;t yet dipped your toe into the Azure pool, but are curious, this blog post is for you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect1\">\n<h2 id=\"_what_is_cloud_computing_what_is_azure\">What is cloud computing? What is Azure?<\/h2>\n<div class=\"sectionbody\">\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Cloud computing basically means that instead of running applications in your own data center, you run it in someone else&#8217;s data center. Why would I do that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p><strong>Running a data center is difficult and expensive.<\/strong> You have to purchase hardware, manage upgrades, security, networking, and even stuff like electricity, ventilation, and cooling. For some enterprises, this is either not a big deal or it&#8217;s worth the hassle. But for many enterprises, the value that you&#8217;re delivering is not in the hardware or the operating system and so on, but in the domain expertise that goes into the software you&#8217;re building. Then, cloud appeals to enterprises who would rather someone else handle all that other stuff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>A metaphor that I really like was written up by Albert Barron in a blog post called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/20140730172610-9679881-pizza-as-a-service\">Pizza as a Service<\/a> (I especially like the diagram). It makes sense for a pizza company to control the whole stack because pizza making is their core competency. But if pizza making isn&#8217;t your job, it makes sense to take another option, like dining out, so you can instead spend your time focusing on what you do best.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>This isn&#8217;t to say that cloud is always the best solution, but it explains why many companies are choosing to move at least some of their infrastructure and platform to a cloud provider like Microsoft&#8217;s Azure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect1\">\n<h2 id=\"_how_do_i_sign_up_for_azure\">How do I sign up for Azure?<\/h2>\n<div class=\"sectionbody\">\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>If you&#8217;re on the fence, I recommend at least giving it a try, so that you&#8217;re prepared for the day that your CTO comes to you and asks &#8220;so what are we doing about the cloud?&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Signing up for Azure is easy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect2\">\n<h3 id=\"_create_microsoft_account\">Create Microsoft account<\/h3>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>To start, you&#8217;ll need a Microsoft account. If you don&#8217;t already have one, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/signup.live.com\/\">signup here<\/a>. It&#8217;s free, and you can use it in a bunch of other places later, even if you end up not liking Azure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p><span class=\"image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/07501-Create-Microsoft-account.png\" alt=\"Create a Microsoft account\"><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect2\">\n<h3 id=\"_create_azure_account\">Create Azure account<\/h3>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Next, go to azure.microsoft.com and <a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/free\/\">create a free account<\/a>. Signing up with that link will give you $200 in free credit to use on Azure services. You do need to use a credit card to sign up, but it is just for verifying your identity (they don&#8217;t want a bunch of spammers and bitcoin bots). Microsoft will not charge you until you say so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p><em>Side note: If you have an <a href=\"https:\/\/msdn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/subscriptions\/cc150618.aspx\">MSDN\/Visual Studio license<\/a>, are part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/offers\/ms-azr-0064p\/\">BizSpark program<\/a> or have an educational grant through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoftazurepass.com\/AzureU\">AzureU (ask your professor!)<\/a>, you may already have some free Azure credit on a monthly basis!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p><span class=\"image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/07502-Create-free-azure-account.png\" alt=\"Create Azure account\"><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Speaking of money, there are <em>some<\/em> things you can do in Azure that are <a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/free\/pricing-offers\/\">absolutely free<\/a>. <em>But<\/em>, running Couchbase Server currently requires you to provision <a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/services\/virtual-machines\/\">Virtual Machines<\/a>, so if you want to play with Couchbase, you will put that $200 to good use.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect1\">\n<h2 id=\"_couchbase_and_azure_is_200_enough\">Couchbase and Azure: Is $200 enough?<\/h2>\n<div class=\"sectionbody\">\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>When I first started with Azure, I was very worried that I&#8217;d run up a big tab if I wasn&#8217;t careful. With the $200 trial, you won&#8217;t get charged until you explicitly tell Microsoft to do so. But years later, after my initial trial, I&#8217;ve still never had a problem of an unexpectedly high bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect2\">\n<h3 id=\"_quotas\">Quotas<\/h3>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>I&#8217;ve never had this problem because:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>a) Azure services are very reasonably priced, and<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>b) Microsoft makes it hard to hop on a runaway train of spending money.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>In fact, almost a year ago, I was tasked with provisioning a medium-sized cluster of Couchbase nodes on some very beefy Virtual Machines. Lots of RAM, lots of processor cores, 10 total virtual machines all running Couchbase. I started doing this (manually, to begin with) and discovered that Azure actually has a <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/azure\/azure-subscription-service-limits\">quota that limits the number of cores you can provision<\/a>. If you want to create a huge Couchbase cluster, you&#8217;ll first need to request an increase in the limit on the number of cores and\/or virtual machines that you are allowed to have (this is a manual process, again to avoid abuse\/surprises\/exploitation\/etc).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p><span class=\"image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/07503-Azure-core-quota.png\" alt=\"Azure core quota\"><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Because of that, I realized that even if I had created an experimental automated script that I accidentally asked to create 100 machines instead of 10, Azure would stop me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect2\">\n<h3 id=\"_it_cost_how_much\">It cost how much?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Until you want to build that huge cluster, you probably won&#8217;t need more than $200 to start with, and you won&#8217;t need to increase your quota.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>As an example, I ran a single-node Couchbase Server on a low-end virtual machine within the last 30 days. I must have provisioned, used it, and tore it down 3 or 4 times. As you can see from the below screenshot of my billing statement, it cost me a grand total of $0.11 for an hour and a half of VM time (and I think there are a few pennies for related services, not shown).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p><span class=\"image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/07504-Azure-costs-by-service.png\" alt=\"Azure costs by service\"><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p><em>(Some information blurred to protect the innocent).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Your mileage will vary, but my point is that I think you will find it more challenging to use up that $200 credit than you think.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect2\">\n<h3 id=\"_more_than_enough_to_get_started_with_couchbase\">More than enough to get started with Couchbase<\/h3>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Finally, when you&#8217;re ready to play around with Couchbase, I encourage you to check out other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/category\/couchbase-server\/\">blog posts about Couchbase Server<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>Also, watch this short instructional video on how to provision Couchbase Server clusters automatically. You don&#8217;t have to provision a Virtual Machine, install Couchbase, do the initial cluster setup, network them together, etc manually. This video (courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/benofben\">Ben Lackey<\/a> from the <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/couchbase-partners\">Couchbase Partners team<\/a>) shows you how to provision a Couchbase Server cluster from the Azure Marketplace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>\n[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=q9mBBu0YqJI&amp;w=560&amp;h=315]\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sect1\">\n<h2 id=\"_summary\">Summary<\/h2>\n<div class=\"sectionbody\">\n<div class=\"paragraph\">\n<p>If you&#8217;ve never used Azure or any cloud computing, now is your chance to get started. I&#8217;d love to hear about your experiences with Azure, with Couchbase, and your overall impressions of cloud computing. Please leave a comment below, or talk to me on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\">Twitter @mgroves<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Azure is where Microsoft is spending a lot of its efforts lately. Microsoft is dedicated to making Azure a success. As someone who started working with Azure a little in the early days, I can say that it&#8217;s come a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":3934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1816],"tags":[1245,1673],"ppma_author":[8937],"class_list":["post-3944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-couchbase-server","tag-cloud","tag-microsoft-azure"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.8 (Yoast SEO v25.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Azure: Getting Started is Easy and Free - The Couchbase Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to get started with Azure. It&#039;s easy and free. You&#039;ll be provisioning Virtual Machines, and running Couchbase Server in no time.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/azure-getting-started-easy-free\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Azure: Getting Started is Easy and Free\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn how to get started with Azure. It&#039;s easy and free. 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