Aug. 30, 2022 — Microsoft is announcing the general availability of the latest Azure Virtual Machines featuring the Ampere Altra Arm–based processor. The new virtual machines will be generally available on September 1, and customers can now launch them in 10 Azure regions and multiple availability zones around the world. In addition, the Arm-based virtual machines can be included in Kubernetes clusters managed using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This ability has been in preview and will be generally available over the coming weeks in all the regions that offer the new virtual machines.

Earlier this year, we launched the preview of the new general-purpose Dpsv5 and Dplsv5 and memory optimized Epsv5 Azure Virtual Machine series, built on the Ampere Altra processor. These new virtual machines have been engineered to efficiently run scale-out, cloud-native workloads. Since then, hundreds of customers have tested and experienced firsthand the excellent price-performance that the Arm architecture can provide for web and application servers, open-source databases, microservices, Java and .NET applications, gaming, media servers, and more. Starting today, all Azure customers can deploy these new virtual machines using the Azure portal, SDKs, API, PowerShell, and the command-line interface (CLI).

Customers build and run a vast variety of workloads on Azure, whether they are digitally transforming and modernizing their businesses or building all-new innovative distributed apps and services that the world has never seen before. At the same time, customers want to maximize operational efficiency and are taking a holistic approach across their application portfolios. They are also beginning to evaluate sustainability factors and the overall impact of their technological choices. Azure’s Ampere Altra Arm–based virtual machines represent a cost-effective and power-efficient option that does not compromise the level of performance that customers require.

Customers like Amadeus, the leading IT provider for the global travel industry, shared their perspective:

“The preview of the Ampere Altra Arm–based Dpsv5 Azure Virtual Machine series on Azure was the perfect opportunity to explore how these new instances could improve Amadeus Search and Shopping products for our customers. During our tests and benchmarks, we experienced an already mature Arm ecosystem and a seamless integration with Azure services. As expected, the high throughput and the reduced energy consumption makes this Series a must for improving both the performance and the sustainability of our Compute footprint. Following this conclusive experience, we are now planning on using these instances in production to run our Cloud workloads at scale.”—Antoine Collier, Cloud Engineer at Amadeus

A growing partner ecosystem

Microsoft has over 20 years of experience with Arm-based technologies, and we continue to participate in the vibrant Arm ecosystem to help accelerate customer innovation. We are uniquely positioned to help customers build great solutions by collaborating with software and hardware companies—such as Ampere and Arm—across the globe, and we can also help customers deploy workloads more easily and run them with high performance.

“Ampere’s Cloud Native Processors are uniquely designed to meet both the high performance and power efficiency needs of the cloud. Through our strong partnership with Microsoft, Ampere Altra processors are now generally available as Azure Virtual Machines, bringing new cloud-focused processor technology to end users so that they can deploy the next generation of innovative cloud applications at scale, and do so in a sustainable manner.”—Jeff Wittich, Chief Product Officer, Ampere

“The general availability of Microsoft Azure VMs on Arm marks an important milestone in redefining what is possible in cloud computing. Through market-leading scalable efficiency and the liberty to innovate, Arm Neoverse is enabling Azure customers to embrace the increasing diversity of workloads with better overall TCO and cleaner cloud service operations.”—Chris Bergey, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm

We have been working with the open-source community and various independent software vendors (ISVs) to make several Linux OS distributions including Canonical Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, CentOS, and Debian available on the new Arm-based Azure Virtual Machines. We will also add support for Alma Linux and Rocky Linux in the future.

“We see companies using Arm-based architectures as a way of reducing both cost and energy consumption. Arm-based architectures are ideal for computing workloads including microservices, application servers, machine learning, open-source databases, and in-memory caches. It truly is a huge advancement for those looking to develop with Linux on Azure. We are pleased to partner with Microsoft to announce the general release of Ubuntu images.”—Alexander Gallagher, Vice President of Cloud, Canonical

“Red Hat has long been committed to providing our customers with a choice of architectures that meet their unique computing needs, from on-premises environments to public clouds and edge. We are pleased to support Ampere Altra Arm-based VMs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Microsoft Azure, adding to our hybrid cloud-spanning roster of architecture options. We work very closely with key partners like Microsoft to support the evolving needs of enterprise customers, highlighted here by helping to drive greater efficiencies through cloud-based Arm-based processors.”—Maryam Zand, Vice President, Cloud Partners, Red Hat

“Given the importance of cloud and edge workloads, SUSE recognizes the significant opportunities with Arm in these environments.  SUSE is excited to partner with Microsoft Azure in supporting the Dpsv5 and Epsv5 Azure VM-series based on the Ampere Altra Arm-based server instances in our recently released SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4. Arm-optimized solutions in the cloud offer significant market potential as enterprises improve time to value and scale-out cloud environments with Azure Virtual Machines.”—Thomas Di Giacomo, CTO SUSE

Read the rest here.

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Source: Paul Nash Vice President, Azure Compute Platform