Create Azure Reserved Instance (RI) products

The Azure Reserved Instance (RI) product in the AppDirect Marketplace is used to bill all one-time charges received from Microsoft. The charges include:

• Azure Reserved Instance orders
• Savings Plans
• Third-party Marketplace SaaS usage
• Azure credits

To ensure accurate billing, use any one of the following methods to create the Azure Reserved Instance (RI) product for customers.

Purchasing RIs directly through checkout

Sales Agents can purchase Azure Reserved Instance products directly from the Marketplace checkout flow.

Prerequisites:

• An active Azure Plan must already exist in Microsoft Partner Center for that customer.

How it works:

• When the sales agent completes the checkout for an RI:
  • A new Azure Reserved Instance Subscription is created in the Marketplace.
  • This subscription becomes the container through which all one-time charges from Microsoft are billed.

This method is best suited for manual or assisted sales where the partner is directly placing the RI order.

📝 Note: This method does not create a Reservation Order in the partner center, it only creates a subscription in the marketplace to consolidate billing data for one time charges.

Automatic Creation Based on Microsoft RI Orders

📝 Note: This feature is not enabled by default. Contact your AppDirect technical representative to request it.

AppDirect provides an optional mechanism, when enabled it automatically creates the Azure Reserved Instance Supplier subscription when a Microsoft RI order is detected in Partner Center.

How it works:

• A sync job runs every 30 minutes.
• AppDirect monitors Microsoft Partner Center for newly placed Azure reservation orders.
• When an RI order is identified: The system automatically creates an Azure Reserved Instance subscription in the Marketplace.
• This subscription is then used to capture and bill all one-time RI charges.

Important limitations:

• This method only works for RI Orders created after enabling the feature.
• If the customer purchases Savings Plans or Third-party SaaS products and no RI order exists, then the Reserved Instance product will not be created automatically. This could lead to the one-time charges being missed for such customers unless another creation mechanism is used.

📝 Note : This method will be deprecated by June 30, 2026.

Automatic Creation via Azure Plan Synchronization

📝 Note: This feature is not enabled by default. Contact your AppDirect technical representative to request it.

When a customer places an Azure Plan order through the Marketplace, AppDirect automatically creates the Azure Reserved Instance subscription within the marketplace.

How it works:

• A sync job runs every 30 minutes.
• If an Azure Plan subscription is detected for a customer in the marketplace, then AppDirect automatically creates the Azure Reserved Instance subscription in the Marketplace.

This method is the recommended method as:

• It ensures complete coverage for:
  • Reserved Instance charges
  • Savings Plan charges
  • Third-party Marketplace charges
  • Azure credit adjustments
• A subscription is always available to receive charges, even when no explicit RI orders exist.

Important limitation:

This method does not check for the Azure Plans created in the partner center. It creates an RI subscription only after detecting an Azure Plan order in the marketplace.

📝 Note: None of the above mentioned methods create a Reservation Order in Partner Center. Reserved Instance product in the marketplace is used to aggregate all the one time charges mentioned above to ensure complete billing for the end customers.