What’s new in the world of Azure AADS SKU’s.
Recently (31/01/2020) Microsoft has made a couple of changes to the way that Azure AD Domain Services are being consumed and billed.
Previous version:
When deploying a new Azure AD Domain Services instance, you weren’t able to provide any type of SKU. The following tiered pricing was being applied to your AADS instance based on the amount of objects.
So if you started with a brand new instance of Azure AD Domain Services, you would end up with the standard tier. Generating about € 96.72 when calculated with 744 hours of uptime. Depending on the amount of objects, you would tier up to the Enterprise grade.
Current release:
As with the “new” release of AADS the tier based pricing hasn’t changed much.
! But be aware, that if you are using the same deployment scripts as you did before, you will end up with an Enterprise SKU level of AADS by default.
! Note the additional option to create a resource forest, which what I believe was included in the previous pricing model, starting from a Standard SKU. To review the latest changes with regards to Azure AD Domain Services, be sure to check out the latest docs article.
Note the price difference
Discover your current SKU level with Azure Resource Graph
If you are an MSP managing multiple customers via Azure Lighthouse, you can use Azure Resource Graph Explorer.
Use the following query to identitfy in Enterprise SKU AADS instances.
where type == "microsoft.aad/domainservices"
| where properties.sku == "Enterprise"
If all is good, you should’t see any results.
Just to verify that your instances are on a Standard Tier. Run the following query.
where type == "microsoft.aad/domainservices"
| where properties.sku == "Standard"
You should now see the “Standard” SKU enabled AADS instances.
Discover your current SKU level in the Azure Portal
Navigate to your Azure AD Domain Services Instance and select SKU
Verify that you are running on a Standard Tier. If needed change to your required Tier based on the necessary requirements.
