Tech giant, Microsoft has now announced the general availability of virtual machines (VMs) on Azure featuring the Ampere Altra, a processor based on the Arm architecture. The first Arm-based Azure VMs as per Microsoft are accessible in 10 Azure regions today and can be included in Kubernetes clusters managed using Azure Kubernetes Service beginning on September 1.
Arm-based Azure VMs Have Up to 64 Virtual CPU Cores
The Azure Arm-based VMs have up to 64 virtual CPU cores, 8 GB of memory per core, and 40 Gbps of networking bandwidth as well as SSD local and attachable storage. Microsoft describes them as “engineered to efficiently run scale-out, cloud-native workloads,” including open source databases, Java and .NET applications, and gaming, web, app, and media servers. The launch of the Azure VMs is a notable win for Ampere, which came out of stealth in 2018 with the ambitious goal of competing with Intel for a slice of the $10 billion data center chip market.
Backed by $426 million in venture capital and led by a former Intel president, the company has managed to snag a foothold in recent years, inking deals with Oracle, Equinix, Google Cloud, and China-based cloud service providers Tencent Cloud, JD Cloud, and UCloud to launch Arm-based VMs. For Microsoft, the Ampere VMs launch is a step toward fulfilling the pledge it made five years ago to power more than half of its cloud data center capacity with Arm-compatible servers.
Arm Tech is Enabling Azure Customers to Embrace the Increasing Diversity of Workloads
“The general availability of Microsoft Azure VMs on Arm marks an important milestone in redefining what is possible in cloud computing,” Arm SVP Chris Bergey is quoted as saying in a blog post detailing the Azure VMs. “Through market-leading scalable efficiency and the liberty to innovate, Arm … is enabling Azure customers to embrace the increasing diversity of workloads with a better overall total cost of ownership and cleaner cloud service operations.”
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