What's everyones experience been with Azure Founder's Hub credits? I have a legitamate startup, that Azure has vetted(I'm not a crypto miner or anything like that). First it takes me nearly two months talking to support to link them to my account, merely because my Linkedin email is different than my startup email.<p>Once they're finally linked to my account, I request a quota increase for a single instance of their smallest/cheapest GPU instance(startup has a few ML models it's running). This is a 4 core T4 instance priced at $383/month. They offer me a ~$5k/m instance, which is obviously out of the price range of someone asking for a $383 instance. Then I'm told, "Switch to a paid plan to access GPU instances, we have limited supply for sponsored accounts". Limited supply? I'm literally asking for access to ONE of your smallest/cheapest instance. And it sounds like the answer is "Yes, we have it available, but not for credits".<p>What's the use of founders credits that can't even be used? Is this the norm with Azure?
Azure isn't going to give you something for nothing.<p>If you're trying to buy cloud servers and you're broke, you're using capital all wrong.<p>You should be buying used enterprise servers and used GPUs and throwing them in second rate datacenters or your garage.<p>Don't buy platinum silverware when you can't afford it and don't need it. If they're handing it out for free, sure take it, but then don't try to complete the set.
I’m in the founders hub program as well and have been very happy with the generous amount of credits, which I have also used for GPU SKUs (don’t remember the exact SKU).<p>It’s true that there are some constraints on eligible SKUs, but I have found that usually it’s tied to which region you want to run it in, i.e. subject to (non-preferential) availability. And GPU SKUs are obviously in high demand currently. Consider checking in other regions or even zones if you haven’t already.<p>My impression is certainly not that they are trying to bait and switch you, but just that the Azure experience can be a bit user hostile sometimes.
I worked at a top 15 Azure customer and we also had commonly had availability issues with GPU SKUs. And this was before the current AI boom (though also during the worst of the supply chain problems). So no, it's not you, there's simply insufficient supply to meet demand.