How is Azure Data out computed?

Question

I'm on a free trial of Windows Azure at the moment. All I've done is deploy a standard MVC start up template, "My MVC Application", to the service.

However when reading the data out charges (zerod costed out while I'm on a trial account) I see

01/10/2011 Windows Azure Platform - All Services Zone 2 Data Transfer Out (GB) 11.414393 Southeast Asia Compute

That's 11GB! The page is all of 3Kb and I'm the only one who knows it exists so how on earth does the useage get that high. I tried calling MS Support but they offered no explaination and if I were not on the intro package I would be billed for this amount.

Has anyone any ideas on where 11GB went for a 3Kb MVC template? Note: I have no corresponding usage from my ISP bandwidth so it's "cant" have been me.

UPDATE:

The usage was never explained. Microsoft talked to itself but ultimately was unable to offer any explaination for the useage spike. I have not since experienced a similar problem. I dont believe Microsoft would intentionally rip us off as that would be a short term gain that would ultimately backfire but in terms of an error they apparently have no means to drill into the figures they bill you for in any meaningful way.

So i think the lesson is that you must implement your own metrics on this service to cross check the figures for which you will be billed.

Answer 1

Did you enable Content Delivery Network (CDN) ? The mechanism will transfer your data to other service zone. But still, 11GB is extremely large compared with your actual content size.

See more details at: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/faq/