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At the moment, it costs $119 per month to use Azure SQL Reporting services. We want to make the move to Azure SQL Reporting/SSRS as our reporting capabilities are expected to grow quite dramatically over the next couple of years.

Right now, only a few reports are run per month. This does not warrant spending $119.

Options:

  1. Hosting SSRS in an Azure VM. This will cut the price in half if a Small VM is used ($67 per month). The problem with this solution is the overhead of maintaining the server, but the ease of moving to Azure SQL Reporting services (when the time comes due to high load) shouldn't be too difficult.

  2. Use an alternative reporting engine. I've had a look at Izenda, DevExpress and Telerik, but they are expensive (around $600 except for Izenda which has no price listing).

  3. Deploying Azure SQL Reporting services when required. I haven't explored this option thoroughly, but we could delete the Azure SQL Reporting deployment after use and recreate it before needing it. Perhaps we can automate this to deploy at 8am and delete at 6pm. This would cut the cost in half, but I am not sure of the logistics here.

Any advice would help! Thanks

Dave New
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about cost and options – bummi Aug 27 '13 at 09:12
  • I would appreciate if you can share your findings on this topic. I am looking into alternatives as we planned to use Azure SQL Reporting and only after our proposal was accepted did the bomb drop about Microsoft discontinuing Azure SQL Reporting. –  Mar 25 '14 at 08:10
  • Sorry for not answering. I clearly got the the very important police squads' panties in a knot. But ya, rules are rules hey! So, I found that implementing your own SSRS on a VM is the best solution. Pros: cheaper and flexible. Cons: maintenance overhead. – Dave New Mar 25 '14 at 08:20
  • [SQL Reporting will discontinue service on October 31, 2014.](http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/sql-reporting/) – kuskunko Mar 26 '14 at 20:17
  • @kuskunko: Yes, but you can still host your own implementation of SSRS on virtual machines. – Dave New Mar 27 '14 at 06:46

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