Sign in
Microsoft.com
 
Microsoft
 
 
 
Microsoft >
> 
> 
> 
Customer Portal is free but Azure is $90 a month ??

Discussion Customer Portal is free but Azure is $90 a month ??

  • Tuesday, June 12, 2012 11:54 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    1

    For this "free" portal to work, you have to use Azure. For you to use Azure the least amount of money one can spend is $90 per month.

    Is everyone else doing the same thing and spending $90+ to get this free portal functional?

     

All Replies

  • Thursday, June 14, 2012 7:23 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Hello David,

    There is a free trial of azure - https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/ as well as low pricing offers - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/. If this does not work for you, you can also set-up the portals against an onpremise instance of Dynamics CRM.

    Hope this helps,

    Maria

     
  • Tuesday, June 19, 2012 2:57 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Thanks for the reply Maria.

    Yes, I used the 90 day free trial and now the lowest cost I can get from MS is the $90 per month.
    You pay for 24/7 even if your portal has only a couple of logins per month. Now I see why MS has been pushing Azure so hard. It's a great revenue stream for them. Not so good for the customer.

     
  • Wednesday, June 27, 2012 5:25 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Pretty sure Azure has flexible pricing plans for low-volume options

    Try this link http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/ to figure out the lowest cost option you can go with based on what your needs are

     
  • Tuesday, July 03, 2012 11:02 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    Sergey,

    Pretty sure they do NOT.
    I spoke to Azure reps and this is the cheapest plan.
    It's funny that 2 MS people have replied with a vague "low price" comment. How about some ACTUAL numbers?

     
  • Thursday, August 30, 2012 12:38 PM
    Moderator
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0
    The portal will work on any IIS host.  We recommend using Azure when you are using CRM online because the Azure data centers are very close to the CRM Online servers.  That said, you can use any other IIS hosting company that you want, and you can even host your portals on an on-premise machine (even if you are using CRM Online).  That said, there were some new Azure features launched this spring, and you can even host your portal in what is called Windows Azure Web Sites (Waws).  This is a very low cost hosting alternative.  The only caveat now is that we are waiting for Microsoft to install WIF in those servers so that you can reliably use Azure ACS for authentication.

    Shan McArthur www.shanmcarthur.net Check out the commercial edition of xRM portals @ www.adxstudio.com

     
  • Tuesday, December 04, 2012 9:13 PM
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    if I do the math you might be able to get it for less.

    Extra small could service with one instance ~$14.40 month (if extra small if enough for you)

    Identity Transaction ~$1.99 for each 100,000.

    Not sure how to calc the Service Bus (Message and relay hours)

    btw as MS partner you get this included:

    https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/member-offers/

    cheers

     
  • Tuesday, December 04, 2012 9:58 PM
    Moderator
     
     
    Sign In to Vote
    0

    You can also now use the new Azure Web Sites feature with the portal framework.  This is a much more affordable hosting model even with a free tier.  Just don't expect great performance with the free tier.  http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/web-sites/

    Shan McArthur www.shanmcarthur.net Check out the commercial edition of xRM portals @ www.adxstudio.com