<p>I can't comment, so using an answer.</p>
<p>What exactly do you mean by &quot;However, when they were finished there were no parallel jobs available in our account.&quot; If you use the MS hosted agents, and if you bought three parallel jobs, you should see them in the Organization settings -&gt; Parallel jobs overview. If not, try lo log out, clear cache etc. The purchases are indeed for a month, as explained <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/devops/azure-devops-services/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>, the costs would be about 40 euros for a month, so for three it would be around 120 euro a month.</p>
<p>As an alternative, and as suggested by others, you could use self hosted agents. They are cheaper, and depending on resources on the host where you install the agent, they run faster.</p>
<p>And then, depending on your needs, there are several ways that might speed up your deployment process, but that usually depends on what you've already configured and your needs.</p>
<p>And then last, if you are a really early user of DevOps, there was an option to pay for hosted agents by the minute. That could explain your situation, but I've checked several organizations inclusing a few already several years old but I can't find any reference of it.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-25T11:15:16.053Z
We purchased three, we saw them in the portal.  We ran one deployment which was much faster as jobs ran in parallel for a minute or so.  Once deployment was finished, the purchased three vanished from the portal.
EvilDr
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-25T11:16:26.367Z
I cannot see any option to purchase by the minute, although that would be ideal because it's low-usage.
EvilDr
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-25T17:54:40.363Z
I think if this was a comment, I would ask you to post it as an answer!
Peter Turner
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-25T10:52:19.373Z
2022-11-25T10:52:19.373Z
GetShifting
<p>So we use privately hosted agents and it saves us a lot of money, here are some details</p>
<p><strong>Public project</strong>
Up to 10 free Microsoft-hosted parallel jobs that can run for up to 360 minutes (6 hours) each time No overall time limit per month</p>
<p><strong>Private project</strong>
One free job that can run for up to 60 minutes each time 1,800 minutes (30 hours) per mont. You can pay extra to get parallel jobs.</p>
<p><strong>Self Hosted Agent</strong>
You can just setup your own self hosted agents, it just a script you run on a VM, takes about 10min per agent plus of course you need to install the software you need on the agent(s) and then you don't have those restrictions.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-24T13:26:02.280Z
That does not answer the question.  I'm Microsoft-hosted and the query is about what classifies a "consumption".  The job only ran for a few seconds.
EvilDr
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-24T12:21:50.253Z
2022-11-24T12:21:50.253Z
qBasicBoy
<p>If your pipeline exceeds the maximum job timeout, try splitting your pipeline into multiple jobs. Here is the docs for it
<a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/process/phases?view=azure-devops" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/process/phases?view=azure-devops</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-18T13:29:28.877Z
I'm afraid this does not answer my query, which was not related to timeouts
EvilDr
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-18T12:21:40.277Z
2022-11-18T12:21:40.277Z
Aniket Kumar
<p>We're in the process of moving away from Visual Studio's web publish into Azure DevOps and require some clarity on how parallel jobs are &quot;consumed&quot;, or an alternative way to quickly deploy our application to multiple destinations.</p>
<p>Our web application has a single code-base and is published into 15 separate clients' hosting areas (all on Azure App Services), each with their own configuration file transform during the final deployment process, e.g.:</p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/mjd2i.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/mjd2i.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>Currently the process is working well on Azure DevOps' &quot;free&quot; account, but it takes around one hour to deploy to each client hosting environment as the processes run in a queue (<code>Deploy Customer 1</code> → <code>Deploy Customer 2</code> → ...).</p>
<p>Yesterday to streamline the process and get the deployments done asynchronously we purchased three &quot;Parallel Jobs&quot; from the billing area.  Deployment was indeed much quicker as three ran in parallel.  However, when they were finished there were no parallel jobs available in our account.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/licensing/concurrent-jobs?view=azure-devops&amp;tabs=ms-hosted" rel="nofollow noreferrer">terminology in the Learn portal</a> talks about monthly resources, so we had assumed that the parallel job agents were a one-month purchase (buy once/use many in that month).</p>
<p>If they are consumed immediately upon completion then according to the <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/devops/azure-devops-services/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">pricing calculator</a>, if have a weekly release and use 15 parallel jobs then that will cost me over £2,000 per month (£35.34 * 15 * 4) which seems unbelievably expensive for a short time saver.</p>
<p>Can anyone please clarify the situation, or suggest an alternative method for deploying asynchronously?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-21T17:47:12.570Z
if you use self-hosted agents you can use them for free, it can be a physical box you own or a vm, installing the agent takes 10 minutes
qBasicBoy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-21T17:50:38.073Z
more info at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/hosted?view=azure-devops&tabs=yaml
qBasicBoy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-22T08:17:32.967Z
It doesn't mention agent consumption, only storage consumption.
EvilDr
<azure-devops><release-management>
Clarity on Azure DevOps parallel job "consumption"
EvilDr
# Clarity on Azure DevOps parallel job "consumption"

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-11-17)

We're in the process of moving away from Visual Studio's web publish into Azure DevOps and require some clarity on how parallel jobs are "consumed", or an alternative way to quickly deploy our application to multiple destinations.

Our web application has a single code-base and is published into 15 separate clients' hosting areas (all on Azure App Services), each with their own configuration file transform during the final deployment process, e.g.:

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/mjd2i.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/mjd2i.png)

Currently the process is working well on Azure DevOps' "free" account, but it takes around one hour to deploy to each client hosting environment as the processes run in a queue (`Deploy Customer 1` → `Deploy Customer 2` → ...).

Yesterday to streamline the process and get the deployments done asynchronously we purchased three "Parallel Jobs" from the billing area. Deployment was indeed much quicker as three ran in parallel. However, when they were finished there were no parallel jobs available in our account.

The [terminology in the Learn portal](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/licensing/concurrent-jobs?view=azure-devops&tabs=ms-hosted) talks about monthly resources, so we had assumed that the parallel job agents were a one-month purchase (buy once/use many in that month).

If they are consumed immediately upon completion then according to the [pricing calculator](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/devops/azure-devops-services/), if have a weekly release and use 15 parallel jobs then that will cost me over £2,000 per month (£35.34 \* 15 \* 4) which seems unbelievably expensive for a short time saver.

Can anyone please clarify the situation, or suggest an alternative method for deploying asynchronously?

**Tags:** azure-devops, release-management

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: if you use self-hosted agents you can use them for free, it can be a physical box you own or a vm, installing the agent takes 10 minutes  
> **username_1**: more info at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/hosted?view=azure-devops&tabs=yaml  
> **username_0**: It doesn't mention agent consumption, only storage consumption.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2022-11-25. Score: 2

I can't comment, so using an answer.

What exactly do you mean by "However, when they were finished there were no parallel jobs available in our account." If you use the MS hosted agents, and if you bought three parallel jobs, you should see them in the Organization settings -> Parallel jobs overview. If not, try lo log out, clear cache etc. The purchases are indeed for a month, as explained [here](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/devops/azure-devops-services/), the costs would be about 40 euros for a month, so for three it would be around 120 euro a month.

As an alternative, and as suggested by others, you could use self hosted agents. They are cheaper, and depending on resources on the host where you install the agent, they run faster.

And then, depending on your needs, there are several ways that might speed up your deployment process, but that usually depends on what you've already configured and your needs.

And then last, if you are a really early user of DevOps, there was an option to pay for hosted agents by the minute. That could explain your situation, but I've checked several organizations inclusing a few already several years old but I can't find any reference of it.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: We purchased three, we saw them in the portal.  We ran one deployment which was much faster as jobs ran in parallel for a minute or so.  Once deployment was finished, the purchased three vanished from the portal.  
> **username_0**: I cannot see any option to purchase by the minute, although that would be ideal because it's low-usage.  
> **username_3**: I think if this was a comment, I would ask you to post it as an answer!  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2022-11-24. Score: 0

So we use privately hosted agents and it saves us a lot of money, here are some details

**Public project**
Up to 10 free Microsoft-hosted parallel jobs that can run for up to 360 minutes (6 hours) each time No overall time limit per month

**Private project**
One free job that can run for up to 60 minutes each time 1,800 minutes (30 hours) per mont. You can pay extra to get parallel jobs.

**Self Hosted Agent**
You can just setup your own self hosted agents, it just a script you run on a VM, takes about 10min per agent plus of course you need to install the software you need on the agent(s) and then you don't have those restrictions.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: That does not answer the question.  I'm Microsoft-hosted and the query is about what classifies a "consumption".  The job only ran for a few seconds.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2022-11-18. Score: 0

If your pipeline exceeds the maximum job timeout, try splitting your pipeline into multiple jobs. Here is the docs for it
<https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/process/phases?view=azure-devops>

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I'm afraid this does not answer my query, which was not related to timeouts  

---

