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RSS feedNovember 2021
General availability: New Azure Virtual Machines deliver increased performance for a broad range of workloads
The new Dv5 and Ev5 Azure Virtual Machines feature 3rd Generation Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8370C (Ice Lake) processors and deliver better price-performance compared to prior VM generations. The latest Dasv5 and Easv5 VMs - based on the 3rd Generation AMD EPYCTM 7763v (Milan) processor - now include options without local disk storage for lower-cost entry points. All these new VMs are now generally available and target general-purpose and memory-intensive workloads.
October 2021
General availability: Ephemeral OS disks for Azure VMs support additional VM sizes
You now can choose where to store Ephemeral OS disks, either in VM temp disk or on VM cache. This enables Ephemeral OS disks to be created on more VM sizes that have sufficient temp disks.
September 2021
On-demand capacity reservations for Azure Virtual Machines now in public preview
On-demand capacity reservations, now in public preview, enable you to reserve compute capacity for one or more VM size(s) in an Azure region or Availability Zone for any length of time.
Public preview: Automatic scaling with Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets flexible orchestration mode
This release provides improved quality and simplified Azure customer experience, giving you the opportunity to combine the functionality of Availability Sets and Virtual Machine Scale Sets.
August 2021
Basic and Standard A-series VMs will retire on 31 August 2024
Target retirement date: August 31, 2024
Migrate your Azure workloads to Av2-series VMs before 31 August 2024.
H-series Azure Virtual Machines will be retired by 31 August 2022
Target retirement date: August 31, 2022
Migrate to HPC, GP, or RAM optimized VMs by 31 August 2022
HB-series Azure Virtual Machines will be retired by 31 August 2024
Target retirement date: August 31, 2024
Transition to new HPC virtual machines by 31 August 2024.
June 2021
Public preview: Azure Automanage now supports Arc enabled servers
Now you can automatically onboard your Arc enabled servers to best practice Azure management services using Azure Automanage, saving time and manual management effort.
General availability: Confidential Computing price reduction on DCsv2 virtual machines
DCsv2-series Azure Virtual Machines protect the confidentiality and integrity of your data and code while it’s processed in the public cloud. The price for this offering is now 37% lower.
May 2021
General availability: Run Enterprise Java with Red Hat JBoss EAP for Azure Virtual Machines
Azure Marketplace offers to run JBoss EAP on Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Machine Scale Sets are now available. Customers can quickly move existing Java EE/Jakarta EE workloads to the cloud with limited code changes.
General availability: Enabling IBM WebSphere Application Server on Azure Virtual Machines
IBM WebSphere Application Server (Traditional) Network Deployment on Azure Linux Virtual Machines is now available, jointly developed and supported by IBM and Microsoft.
New NPv1 virtual machines are now generally available
New Xilinx Alveo U250 FPGA NPv1 VMs are now generally available in West US 2, East US, West Europe, and Southeast Asia.
April 2021
Azure Site Recovery now supports Azure Policy in public preview
Leverage Azure Policy to enable Azure Site Recovery for your VMs at scale and ensure organizational standards.
New Azure VMs for general purpose and memory intensive workloads now in public preview
New Dv5, Dsv5, Ddv5, Ddsv5, and Ev5, Edv5 series Azure Virtual Machines deliver increased scalability and an upgraded CPU architecture, including better price to performance compared to the prior generation. The new VMs - now in public preview - run on the 3rd Generation Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8370C (Ice Lake) processor in a hyper-threaded configuration. This custom processor can reach an all-core Turbo clock speed of up to 3.5GHz and features Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512) and Intel® Deep Learning Boost.
Azure Virtual Machines DCsv2-series now available in public preview in Azure Government
Azure Government customers can build secure, enclave-based applications to protect code and data while it’s in use, in a dedicated cloud that meets stringent government security and compliance requirements.
Announcing general availability of new M-series Msv2/Mdsv2 Medium Memory VMs for memory-optimized workloads
Azure Msv2/Mdsv2 Medium Memory Series offering up to 192vCPU and 4TB memory configurations and running on Cascade Lake processor are now generally available.
User data through Azure Instance Metadata Service now generally available
Leverage user data to customize your VM instance provision and configuration.
Public preview: Announcing Azure STIG solution templates to accelerate compliance for DoD
Announcing the availability of Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) solution templates for both Windows and Linux on the Azure Marketplace (commercial) and Azure Government Marketplace.
New Azure Cloud Services deployment model now generally available
Use Azure Cloud Services (extended support), now generally available, to increase regional resiliency and gain access to new capabilities that the Azure Resource Manager-based deployment model provides.
March 2021
Enabling IBM WebSphere on Azure Kubernetes Service
Customers can now leverage guidance jointly developed with IBM to run WebSphere Liberty and Open Liberty on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
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