Simplify Cloud Procurement: Maximize Your Azure Commitment with Private Offers (Real-World Proof)

The Power of Azure Marketplace Private Offers

Many enterprise customers face a recurring challenge: reconciling strategic cloud investments with existing financial commitments, such as the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC). This is where Azure Marketplace Private Offers become a game-changer. These private, customized transactions provide a flexible and strategic path for enterprises to procure SUSE solutions like SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP, ensuring their spend counts toward that crucial MACC while retaining the necessary technical controls and direct support.

Azure Marketplace Private Offers unlock value by giving you, the customer, the power to purchase the exact SUSE solutions you need through the Azure Marketplace. This process ensures your spending is recognized against your committed consumption target. By working closely with the SUSE and Microsoft teams, we can structure custom VM Reservation Private Offers that address complex requirements—like using custom-built images—without requiring a costly, disruptive rebuild.

How Do Azure Marketplace Private Offers Solve Procurement Challenges?

The core challenge we consistently see from global enterprises involves aligning subscription renewals with cloud consumption goals. If your organization has committed spend on Azure, you want every purchase of a mission-critical platform to help draw down that commitment.

This challenge is precisely what our SUSE Cloud Alliance team, in partnership with Microsoft, solves daily. Here’s a real-world example of how we worked with a leading enterprise to deliver a customized solution.

Why Should Your Organization Prioritize Azure Marketplace Private Offers?

When a Leading Retailer sought to renew their extensive SLES for SAP subscriptions, their primary business driver was exactly this: they needed the purchase to count toward their MACC. Historically, a customer’s wish to bring their own subscription (BYOS) model—which allows them to use their own custom-built golden images—was mutually exclusive with transacting through the marketplace. The BYOS model is often non-negotiable for large enterprises because it avoids the costly, time-consuming process of rebuilding established custom environments.

Azure Marketplace Private Offers are the solution. Our engineering teams collaborated with Microsoft to enable a VM Reservation Private Offer that accommodated the customer’s needs:

• MACC Drawdown: The deal’s value contributed to their committed Azure spend.
• Custom Images: They continued to use their in-house developed custom SLES images without interruption.
• Direct Support: They maintained their existing, trusted direct support model with SUSE, rather than routing all support through the hyperscaler.

This combination of financial flexibility, operational control‌ and technical adherence is the paramount benefit of a private offer.

Retain Control: The Power of the VM Reservation Private Offer

The VM Reservation Private Offer structure is a powerful, flexible mechanism used to manage these customized deals. It is a vital tool for customers looking to optimize their cloud infrastructure.

VM Reservation Private Offers provide essential benefits:

• Payment Flexibility: We can structure the private offer to match your finance operations requirements—whether that means payment in annual installments or a full, upfront billing that immediately utilizes your committed spend. We even have the ability to issue contract amendments if your finance needs change mid-cycle, without canceling and reissuing a new offer.
• Infrastructure Optimization: For the Leading Retailer, this transaction was an opportunity to optimize their infrastructure, allowing them to expand their use of features like live patching across all their instances.
• Consolidated Spend: This approach allows you to consolidate the procurement of multiple solutions—including SLES, SLES for SAP, Rancher, and SUSE Multi Linux Manager—all with private offers, making all of these purchases MACC drawdown eligible.

Microsoft is highly incentivized to work with us on these custom solutions because every dollar of SUSE product deployed on Azure drives consumption revenue for them. When your SUSE Cloud Alliance team brings a deal forward, we get their attention because they recognize the value in our joint customers. This strong partnership accelerates the approval process and ensures we can deliver custom solutions faster than ever before.

Key Takeaways

What Azure Marketplace Private Offers allow you to achieve:

• Maximize MACC: Directly count SUSE purchases against your Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment.
• Maintain BYOS: Continue using your custom-built operating system images without requiring a complicated migration.
• Retain Direct Support: Keep your existing, trusted direct support relationship with SUSE.
• Consolidate Solutions: Bundle multiple SUSE products (SLES, Rancher, SLES for SAP) into one MACC-eligible transactions.

Azure Marketplace Private Offers provide the agility of the cloud marketplace alongside the enterprise-grade control and support you expect from SUSE.

Next Steps: Engage Early and Often

Our experience with the Leading Retailer has reinforced that Microsoft is increasingly flexible and willing to explore custom, non-standard transactions that drive consumption on Azure. The key is engagement.

If you are working with Microsoft Azure and you anticipate the need for committed spend drawdown, custom images, or unique payment terms, please reach out to the SUSE Cloud Alliance team. The earlier we begin the discussions with the Microsoft account team, the sooner we can scope, approve‌ and execute the perfect, customized solution for your business.

Contact your SUSE Account Executive or Cloud PDM today to explore how a custom Azure Marketplace Private Offer can streamline your next renewal.

Connect with SUSE

• Contact us: Email us directly at cloudsales@suse.com to explore how a custom Azure Marketplace Private Offer can streamline your next renewal.
• Meet SUSE at Microsoft Ignite! We’ll be at Booth 5247 from November 18–21, 2025. Stop by for live demos and conversations focused on Private Offers, our Marketplace solutions, and more.