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Azure Virtual Machines: A Comprehensive Guide
Introduction
Azure virtual machines (VMs) offer a wide range of options to cater to diverse application needs, from cost-effective dev-test VMs to powerful, GPU-enabled VMs for intensive workloads.
Linux and Windows VMs
Azure supports both Linux and Windows VMs, providing flexibility in operating system choice. Linux VMs offer a wide range of distributions to choose from, including Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
Flexible Scale Sets
Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets allow you to automatically scale up or down the number of virtual machines in a set based on demand. This provides increased elasticity and cost optimization for applications with fluctuating resource requirements.
On-Demand Scalable Computing
Azure virtual machines are a type of on-demand scalable computing resource. This means you can provision VMs as needed, paying only for the compute resources you use.
Reserved Virtual Machine Instances
Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances offer significant cost savings of up to 80% by committing to a one- or three-year reservation. This is ideal for applications with stable resource requirements.
Hybrid Cloud Solutions
Azure Hybrid Benefit for Virtual Machines allows you to combine on-premises and Azure resources, leveraging existing Windows Server or SQL Server licenses to reduce Azure VM costs.
General Purpose Virtual Machines
Azure offers a range of general purpose virtual machine sizes that are optimized for price-performance balance. These include sizes from Basic A0 to Standard D16s v5, providing a wide array of core, memory, and storage configurations.
vCPU and Data Configuration
For each virtual machine size, Azure provides information about the number of virtual CPUs (vCPUs), memory capacity, and local data storage available. This information can be used to select the appropriate size for your application's requirements.
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