Windows Azure Free Trial Exceeded, Nearly Causing Website Downtime
Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud-based operating system. In China, it operates in partnership with 21Vianet, periodically launching free trial activities. A few months ago, I was honored to receive a trial qualification. In terms of configuration and bandwidth, it was the highest among the cloud hosts I have used. I have to admit that Microsoft is very generous.
Unfortunately, recently Windows Azure exceeded the free quota, causing my account to be suspended. When my usage exceeded 70%, I received an email reminder, which I initially ignored. However, when a friend told me that his website could not be opened, I took it seriously (his website was hosted on my Azure). Upon logging into the Azure portal, I found that the service had been suspended.
This was a tragic situation, as there were several other websites' data on it. I immediately called customer service to explain the situation. The customer service attitude was excellent, and they helped me apply for a ticket to restart the service. The next day, it was restored to normal. The frustrating part was that restarting the service changed the virtual machine's IP address. This explains why some friends reported that their Azure virtual machines could not be accessed. You can log in to the Windows Azure portal to check if the public IP address has changed.
A suggestion for friends currently using the Windows Azure trial: check your usage quota in the billing section periodically to avoid exceeding the limit and getting suspended, which would be very tragic. After experiencing this and other incidents, I have increasingly felt the importance of regularly backing up data.