Azure updates

Update: NC-series Azure Virtual Machines will be retired on 31 August 2023

Target retirement date: August 31, 2023

Transition to new HPC virtual machines by 31 August 2023.

• Virtual Machines
• Retirements

General availability: On-demand capacity reservations

On-demand capacity reservations let you reserve compute capacity for one or more VM size(s) in an Azure region or availability zone for any length of time.

• Virtual Machines
• Features

General availability: Azure HBv3 virtual machines for HPC now upgraded

Target availability: Q1 2022

Azure HBv3 virtual machines are now upgraded to and generally available with AMD EPYC 3rd Gen processors with 3D V-Cache, codenamed “Milan-X”, in the Azure East US, South Central US, and West Europe regions.

• Virtual Machines
• Services
• Features

Public preview: Trusted launch support for Virtual Machines using Ephemeral OS disks

Trusted launch virtual machine (VM) support for VMs using Ephemeral OS disks improves the security of generation 2 VMs in Azure.

• Virtual Machines
• Virtual Machine Scale Sets
• Managed Disks
• Features

General availability: Automatically delete a VM and its associated resources simultaneously

You can now automatically delete disks, NICs, and Public IPs associated with a VM at the same time you delete the VM.

• Virtual Machines
• Features

Generally available: Virtual Machine level disk bursting supports additional VM types

Handle unforeseen disk traffic spikes smoothly without the need to overprovision your virtual machine with virtual machine level disk bursting.

• Virtual Machines
• Azure Disk Storage
• Features

Public preview: Azure Virtual Machines DCv3-series now available in Europe West and North

Confidential computing DCsv3 and DCdsv3-series virtual machines (VMs) are now available in Europe West and Europe North.

• Virtual Machines
• Security
• Regions & Datacenters
• Pricing & Offerings

Virtual machines selector now generally available

The newly released virtual machines selector lets you quickly find the Azure VMs and disk storage options that meet your requirements. Localised in 26 different languages, the tool guides your selection based on workload categories, operating systems and Azure regions of your choice. The virtual machine selector is integrated with the pricing calculator.

• Virtual Machines
• SDK and Tools

Public preview: Run Command – Execute PowerShell or shell scripts on Virtual Machines and Scale Sets

The updated Run Commands are now management orientated, allows to run multiple scripts, track their progress and define Run Command resources in ARM templates to automate VM deployments.

• Virtual Machines
• Virtual Machine Scale Sets
• Microsoft Ignite
• Features

Public preview: VM Applications – Manage and deploy applications to Virtual Machines and Scale Sets

With VM Applications, you can create and securely store application packages in an Azure Compute Gallery. Package management is greatly simplified with logical grouping and versioning capabilities and packages can be shared with other users in your organization, across subscriptions, and tenants.

• Virtual Machines
• Virtual Machine Scale Sets
• Microsoft Ignite
• Features

Azure trusted launch for Virtual Machines now generally available

Azure offers trusted launch as a seamless way to bolster the security of Generation 2 VMs. Designed to protect against boot kits, rootkits, and kernel-level malware, trusted launch is comprised of secure boot, virtual trusted platform module (vTPM), and boot integrity monitoring.

• Virtual Machines
• Microsoft Ignite
• Features

Automatic VM guest patching is now generally available

Automatic VM guest patching provides safe and automatic patching for virtual machines to simplify update management and maintain security compliance.

• Virtual Machines
• Windows Virtual Machines
• Linux Virtual Machines
• Security
• Microsoft Ignite
• Features

Public preview: Azure Virtual Machines DCsv3 and DCdsv3-series now available

New DCsv3 and DCdsv3-series Azure Virtual Machines transform the state-of-the-art for confidential workloads.

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Virtual Machines
• Security
• Microsoft Ignite
• Regions & Datacenters
• Services
• Features

New orchestration mode for Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets now generally available

Increase the availability at scale of business-critical applications with new Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets features. Simplify workload deployment, management, and scalability with Virtual Machine Scale Sets flexible orchestration mode, now generally available.

• Virtual Machines
• Microsoft Ignite
• Features
• Pricing & Offerings

Limited preview: New Azure Virtual Machines deliver increased storage throughput for data-intensive workloads

Microsoft is announcing the upcoming preview of Ebs v5 and Ebds v5 Azure VMs, a new memory optimized VM series that delivers up to 300% increase in remote storage performance compared to prior generation VMs. The increased storage throughput is ideal for data-intensive workloads, such as large relational databases, high-performance OLTP scenarios, and data analytics applications.

• Virtual Machines
• Microsoft Ignite
• Services
• Features
• Pricing & Offerings