Linux virtual machines in Azure
Create and deploy enterprise-grade open-source and community-driven software in seconds.
Get up and running with your favorite Linux distribution
Select your preferred distribution with Azure Linux virtual machines (VMs), including Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, and CoreOS—about 50 percent of all Azure compute cores are Linux. Get preconfigured solutions from Bitnami, Oracle and other open source VM-compatible providers, and get Azure-optimized Linux images from publishers of your choice. Take advantage of the only co-located technical support in the industry when you deploy Red Hat software on Azure.
Use the tools and stacks you love
Develop applications in Java, Python, PHP, Node.js, Go, .NET Core, and other technologies and deploy them in Linux VMs. Create your solutions and host Java application servers using Apache Tomcat, Red Hat JBoss, IBM WebSphere, or Oracle WebLogic in Azure VMs. Run databases including MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, SQL on Linux, Cassandra, and Redis.
Start building and deploying Java apps on Azure
Reserve your Linux VMs in advance and save up to 72 percent
Reduce costs—up to 72 percent compared to pay-as-you-go prices—with one-year or three-year terms on Azure Reserved VM Instances (RIs) for Linux. Pre-purchase SUSE Linux software subscriptions and get a discount of up to 64 percent over pay-as-you-go prices.
Customize and accelerate your Linux VM deployments
Deploy Linux VMs faster through Azure Resource Manager with community-contributed quickstart templates. Provision and manage Linux VMs in Azure using your favorite DevOps tools, including Ansible, OpenShift, Chef, Jenkins, Puppet, and Terraform.
Get built-in security and management for your Linux VMs
Improve the security of your Azure Linux VMs by integrating your workloads with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication. Monitor your VMs by collecting, viewing, and analyzing log data and use extensions to configure diagnostics. Troubleshoot your Linux VMs in production using the virtual machine serial console.
Unmatched security and compliance to keep your data safe and consistently accessible
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Microsoft invests over USD 1 billion annually on cyber security research and development.
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Microsoft employs more than 3,500 security experts completely focused on securing your data and privacy.
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Microsoft has more certifications than any other cloud provider. View the comprehensive list here.
Get the power, control, and customization you need at competitive prices
Burstable VMs—B1S
Most economical
Our B-series VMs provide an economical, low-cost solution for workloads that normally don't use a lot of CPU, but occasionally need to burst to handle higher workloads. Free for 12 months.
Compute optimized—Fsv2
Raw compute power
Fsv2 is our newest compute-optimized VM family and uses the Intel Skylake processor. Fsv2 delivers the latest Intel CPU for raw compute power.
General purpose—Dv3
Balanced CPU and memory
Our Dv3 family is the latest generation of our general purpose VMs. It's appropriate for a variety of workloads.
Memory optimized—Ev3
High memory-to-core ratio
Ev3 is our latest generation memory-optimized VM. It's great for relational database servers, caches, and in-memory analytics.
Configure and estimate the costs of your Azure VMs using the pricing calculator or learn more about Linux VM pricing.
Trusted by companies of all sizes
Cutting drug development time in half
NeuroInitiative is developing cures for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using neuron simulation boosted by cloud-based GPUs.
Fred Daniel, Chief Technology Officer Transparency-One"We use multiple open-source technologies—Neo4j, RabbitMQ, Elastic, and others—in Azure Virtual Machines on Linux. It’s great to use both Microsoft and open-source technologies in the enterprise-grade cloud."
Boosting calibration speed with machine learning
Learn how energy services company Wood cut its meter calibration time by 80 percent.
Integrating data from hybrid sources at scale
Adobe built its data lake with Azure Data Lake Store along with Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings like Azure Virtual Machines.
Implementing predictive equipment maintenance
Toyota Material Handling uses the cloud to get its technicians to job sites more reliably—and with instant access to the technical information they need when they get there.
Revolutionizing healthcare with secure, real-time data
Oculys connects its leaders and teams to the pulse of their hospital’s operations while maintaining the highest standard of patient privacy.
Everything you need to get started with Linux VMs
Get instant access and a $200 credit by signing up for an Azure free account.
Learn how to provision your first VM with 5-minute quickstart tutorials and developer documentation.
Enhance your VM with additional features, like security and backup services.
Documentation, training, and migration resources
5-minute quickstart
Build an NGINX web-server within an Ubuntu VM using:
Learning modules
Learn how to provision VMs on Azure with step-by-step guidance from Microsoft Learn.
Community and Azure support
Ask questions and get support from Microsoft engineers and Azure community experts.
Migrate to Azure
Manage costs and migrate apps, data, and infrastructure with these free resources.
Popular templates and labs
Discover self-paced labs and popular quickstart templates for common configurations.
Pre-provisioned VMs and partner solutions
Connect with certified partners and choose from thousands of apps and VM images on:
Azure Virtual Machines updates, blogs, and announcements
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ANNOUNCEMENT
Announcing the largest Azure VM ever with 6TB of memory
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ANNOUNCEMENT
New Azure Migrate and Azure Site Recovery enhancements for cloud migration
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ANNOUNCEMENT
Learn about important Azure product updates and announcements
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UPDATE
Azure Virtual Machine PowerOff now available with fast shutdown
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UPDATE
Red Hat Enterprise Linux BYOS images now available
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UPDATE
Azure Serial Console updated with VMSS support and improved language support
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UPDATE
Feature update: Serial console for Azure Virtual Machines
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UPDATE
General availability: Serial console for Azure VMs
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September 3, 2019
Reduce disaster recovery time with Azure Site Recovery
Rajani Janaki Ram, Program Manager II, R&D Compute
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August 22, 2019
Plan migration of your Hyper-V servers using Azure Migrate Server Assessment
Hanaa Musa, Program Manager, Azure Migrate
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August 15, 2019
Azure Ultra Disk Storage: Microsoft's service for your most I/O demanding workloads
Mark Russinovich, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Azure
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August 15, 2019
Announcing the general availability of Azure Ultra Disk Storage
Tad Brockway, Corporate Vice President, Azure Storage, Media, and Edge
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August 14, 2019
Improving Azure Virtual Machines resiliency with Project Tardigrade
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August 12, 2019
Six ways we’re making Azure reservations even more powerful
Yashesvi Sharma, Principal Program Manager, Azure Reservations
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August 8, 2019
Introducing the new HBv2 Azure Virtual Machines for high-performance computing
Evan Burness, Principal Program Manager, Azure HPC
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August 8, 2019
Introducing NVv4 Azure Virtual Machines for GPU visualization workloads
Vijay Kanchanahalli, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Azure
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UPDATE
New AMD-based Azure VMs for general purpose and memory intensive workloads in preview
Frequently asked questions about Azure and Azure VMs
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Azure supports all the major Linux distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Oracle Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, and Ubuntu.
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Azure allows a range of guest operating systems, including the Azure-endorsed Linux distributions and supported Windows Server versions. You can also migrate virtual machines from these VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V environments with Azure Site Recovery. VMs migrated from these on-premises virtualization platforms run as native Azure IaaS VMs and are not dependent on the on-premises hypervisor.
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Azure offers a broad range of virtual machines—there’s a VM for every workload. View the entire set of Azure Virtual Machine Series or read the documentation for Linux VMs to learn more.
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The Azure VM technical documentation pages, Azure VM Series pages, and Azure VM pricing calculator are great resources to help you determine your VM needs.
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Refer to the Azure Products by Region website for more information on which Azure services are available in each region.
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Azure Standard Support provides coordinated support for SUSE Linux VM deployments.
Learn more about the specific supported distributions and versions.
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Of course. Create an Azure free account to learn how Azure works, try products and cloud services, and view tutorials on how to deploy your first solution in 10 minutes or less.
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There are no upfront costs and you only pay for what you use. Use Azure VM Reserved Instances and save up to 72 percent. Pre-purchase SUSE Linux licenses and save up to 64 percent.
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Yes. Learn more about Azure Dev/Test and take advantage of pricing discounts on a variety of other Azure services.
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Azure is the only consistent hybrid cloud, has more regions than any cloud provider, delivers unparalleled developer productivity, and offers more comprehensive compliance coverage—including meeting the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). And according to the Linux Foundation, Microsoft is a significant contributor to the Linux kernel.
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Explore this comprehensive approach. There are several Microsoft and partner tools and a large ecosystem of partners to help migrate on-premises VMs to Azure. Visit the Azure migration center to learn more.
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Create Linux VMs in Azure through the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, or Azure CLIs:
- The Azure portal provides a browser-based user interface to create VMs and associated resources.
- Use the Azure PowerShell module to create and manage Azure resources from the PowerShell command line or in scripts.
- Use the Azure CLI to create and manage Azure resources from the command line or in scripts.
For more information please refer to the documentation.
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Azure VM SLAs are OS independent:
- For all VMs that have two or more instances deployed across two or more availability zones in the same Azure region, virtual machine connectivity to at least one instance is guaranteed at least 99.99 percent of the time.
- For all VMs that have two or more instances deployed in the same availability set, virtual machine connectivity to at least one instance is guaranteed at least 99.95 percent of the time.
- For any single instance VM using premium storage for all operating system disks and data disks, virtual machine connectivity of at least 99.9 percent is guaranteed.
For more information please refer to the documentation.
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Most Azure VMs come with temporary non-persistent local storage. Additionally, Azure offers HDD and SSD-based disk storage for data. Learn more in the Azure Managed Disk Storage portfolio. Refer to the Azure VM technical documentation to learn about the Azure disks that are available for each VM series.
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Virtual Machine Scale Sets let you create and manage a group of identical, load balanced, and autoscaling VMs. Deploy virtual machine scale sets using Azure Resource Manager templates, which support Windows and Linux images as well as custom images and extensions.
Ready when you are—let’s set up your Azure free account.
