Azure Arm-based virtual machines have up to 64 vCPU cores, 8GB of memory per core, and 40Gbps of network bandwidth. They also have fast localSSDstorage, and additional storage can be attached to virtual machines.
“Ampere’s cloud-native processors are uniquely designed to meet both the high-performance and power-efficiency needs of the cloud,” said Jeff Wittich, Ampere’s chief product officer. “Through our strong partnership with Microsoft, the Ampere Altra processor is now available as an Azure virtualized processor. PCs are ubiquitous, bringing new cloud-focused processor technologies to end users.”
Microsoft said Azure Arm-based virtual machines are designed to run scaled, cloud-native workloads, including open source databases, Java and .NET applications, games, networking, application and media servers.
Previews of Windows 11 Professional and Enterprise editions and versions of Linux operating systems such as Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Debian will be available at launch.
Microsoft says support for Alma and Rocky Linux will follow.
“The general availability of Microsoft Azure virtual machines on Arm marks a major milestone in redefining what’s possible in cloud computing,” said Chris Bergey, senior vice president and general manager of the Infrastructure business line at Arm. “Through market-leading scalable efficiency and freedom Innovative, Arm Neoverse enables Azure customers to embrace increasingly diverse workloads with better overall TCO and cleaner cloud service operations.”