I have a Reportins Services instance opened up in Azure.  I'm still in trial phase but trying to test it to see if it will make sense to use it after the trial ends.

I don't need a report server up and running 24h a day and it's cost prohibitive to do so anyway with my app.  However I don't see any way to turn off the instance to keep it from accruing billable usage hours when it is not being used.

Is there a way stop the server, stop the billing and fire it up for a couple hours a week when it is needed? 

Thanks,

Greg

For billing periods beginning after July 31, 2012, SQL Reporting will be charged for each clock hour of a reporting instance. Reporting instance hours are charged only when your service is deployed. So, in your scenario, you might be billed for all the hours when you have your subscriptions contains report servers.

For more details, see:

• http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/ <Pricing Details>
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156044.aspx <Accounts and Billing in Windows Azure SQL Reporting (Windows Azure SQL Reporting)>

Please let me know if this isnt clear.

Thanks

So is there no way to disable the reporting services instance for a few hours to avoid the charges. Turn it off when you don't need it and back on when you do, from what I can see you can only delete the SSRS subscription, and then would have to re-create it.

We are actively working on a new pricing model for Windows Azure SQL reporting that will better serve customers who have lower volume reporting needs. We expect to publish information on the new pricing model in the next couple weeks.  We wish to thank all of the users who provided feedback about this topic.  Were working to address your feedback.

Evan

I am having exactly this same problem - low usage needs and have had my trial subscription suspended because of the 100-hour a month limit. That limit, of course, is reached in about 4 days!

It's been 7 months since the above answer was given but the pricing model seems to not have changed.

The answer given previously pointed out "Reporting instance hours are charged only when your service is deployed" so the question is "how do disable or pause" the SSRS so the clock is stopped until the next time the SSRS is needed? As was already mentioned, right now the only option seems to be that the complete shutdown of the SSRS is required and then essentially all of the reports and data sources will have to be re-created at a later time in order to test again.

The question is: Is it possible to "pause" SSRS until it is needed again rather than run the service 24/7?

Hey I-GaryS,

Actually, the per hour pricing did change early this year (see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2013/02/01/sql-reporting-services-pricing-update.aspx for the details). However, what did not change was the hourly consumption. This means that the situation you ran into is still unfortunately a problem. The ability to programmatically manage the existence of your Azure Reporting is a long-standing ask that hasn't yet been met.

I will look into getting it retriaged to see if we can get a different answer this time around given the extra focus on Dev/Test for Azure.

Evan