Azure Hybrid Benefit

The Azure Hybrid Benefit allows to bring the On-Premises Windows licenses with Software Assurance (SA) to a new deployed Azure Windows Virtual Machine. This feature is applicable for a specific version of Windows like Windows Server Standard and Data-Center editions. With Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB) we can cut down the cost for a VM instance up to 40%.

The table below will help understand what we need to qualify for the Azure Hybrid Benefit.

License with SA/Subscription	VMs a cores granted	How they can be used
WS Datacenter (16 cores or a 2-proc L)	Up to two VMs and up to 16 cores	Run virtual machines both on-premises and in Azure
WS Standard (16 cores or a 2-proc L)	Up to two VMs and up to 16 cores	Run virtual machines either on-premises or in Azure

Important Note:
Each 2-processor license or each set of 16-core licenses are entitled to two instances of up to 8 cores, or one instance of up to 16 cores. The Azure Hybrid Benefit for Standard Edition licenses can only be used once either on-premises or in Azure. Datacenter Edition benefits allow for simultaneous usage both on-premises and in Azure.

Enable The Azure AHB

We can enable the Hybrid Benefit on an existing or a new Virtual Machine.

New Virtual Machine

From the VM Settings tab, select Yes in the “Already have a Windows license?” radio button, and also select the Confirmation checkbox.

Enable (AHB) Via PowerShell

We can enable Azure Hybrid Benefit via Powershell with the following command.

$ResourceGroupName = "ResourceGroup"
$vmname = "VirtualMachineName"
 
$VirtualMachine = Get-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroup $ResourceGroupName -Name $VMName
$VirtualMachine.LicenseType = "Windows_Server"
Update-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName -VM $VirtualMachine

After enabling the feature we can confirm by executing the following command.

$ResourceGroupName = "ResourceGroup"
$vmname = "VirtualMachineName"
 
Get-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroup $ResourceGroupName -Name $vmname

Azure Hybrid Benefit Example

Suppose that we need to enable the AHB on a D3 (4 Cores), for the correct licensing we need:

At least 8 cores licenses with Software Assurance Per VM (If we start with a 4 core VM we have the right to size up to an 8 cores VM without any license cost).