Azure Batch updates—December 2019
Published date: 14 January, 2020
Azure Batch is a service for running large-scale parallel and batch compute jobs. Here’s a summary of all the new or enhanced Batch capabilities that were updated in the second half of 2019:
- Ability to specify pool IP addresses
By default, Batch creates public IPs for each pool to enable the Batch service to communicate with the pool VMs. There are cases where IP addresses need to be static or specifically locked down. This new capability allows public IP addresses to be created separately and specified for use by the pool.
- Shared Image Gallery for custom image pools
Shared Image Gallery is an Azure service that lets you store and manage your VM images that are used to create pools based on custom images. Shared Image Gallery enables large-scale custom image pools (thousands of VMs) to be created more reliably and quickly than previously supported mechanisms for image resources.
- API support to mount remote file systems
The pool API has been updated to specify remote file system configuration, making it easier for pool VMs to mount remote file systems, such as an Azure Files share or a NFS file system.
- Usability updates to default values
The default values for two pool properties have been changed to better address common use cases. The default value for waitForSuccess on StartTask is now true. The default value for scope on task AutoUserSpecification is now “pool.” (Previously, it was “task” on Windows nodes and “pool” on Linux nodes.)