This inefficiency occurs when Azure SQL Managed Instances continue running on legacy General Purpose or Business Critical tiers despite the availability of the next-gen General Purpose tier. The newer tier enables more granular scaling of vCPU, memory, and storage, allowing workloads to better match actual resource needs. In many cases, workloads running on Business Critical—or overprovisioned legacy General Purpose—do not require the premium performance or architecture of those tiers and could achieve equivalent outcomes at lower cost by moving to next-gen General Purpose.
Azure SQL Managed Instance is billed based on service tier, vCPU, memory, and storage configuration. The next-gen General Purpose tier offers improved performance characteristics and independent scaling of compute and storage at similar base pricing to legacy tiers, while Business Critical incurs higher infrastructure and licensing costs.
