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Migrate your HBv2-series virtual machines by May 31, 2027
Note
1-year and 3-year purchases for the HBv2-series end April 2, 2026.
Microsoft Azure has announced the retirement of its HBv2-series virtual machines effective May 31, 2027. Introduced in 2020, the HBv2-series is equipped with 120 AMD EPYC 7V12 processor cores, 4 GB of RAM per CPU core, up to 350 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and up to 4 teraFLOPS of FP64 compute. Since launching this series, Microsoft introduced HBv5, HBv4, HX-series, and HBv3 series virtual machines. These newer offerings pack the latest technological improvements in compute, memory, and backend networking, enabling superior performance, scaling efficiency, and cost-effectiveness for a wide range of high-performance computing workloads.
How does the retirement of the HBv2-series virtual machines affect me?
After May 31, 2027, any remaining HBv2-series virtual machines (VMs) subscriptions will be set to a deallocated state. They'll stop working and no longer incur billing charges. HBv2-series will be no longer under SLA or have support included.
What action do I need to take before the retirement date?
To avoid service disruption, resize or deallocate your HBv2-series VMs and migrate these workloads to newer HPC-optimized SKUs such as HBv5, HBv4, HX, and HBv3-series virtual machines (or an alternative that meets your workload requirements).
Suggested alternative Azure VM sizes
To ensure continuity and optimal performance, we recommend transitioning from the current HBv2-series VMs to newer VM series within Azure's HPC portfolio.
| Workload | Recommended VM to migrate to |
|---|---|
| Memory-bandwidth intensive HPC applications (e.g. CFD, structural mechanics, energy research, weather and climate, chemistry & materials) | HBv5, HBv4, HBv3 |
| Memory capacity/latency bound (e.g. silicon design/EDA) | HX, HBv5, HBv3 |
| Compute bound (e.g. financial calculations, rendering) | HX, HBv4, HBv3 |
Note
These virtual machine recommendations are listed in order of cost performance benefit to customers from most to least.
Check Azure Regions by Product page for region availability. Visit the Azure Virtual Machine pricing page for pricing information.
Steps to change VM size
Choose a series and size. Review the table above for Microsoft's recommendation. You can also file a support request if more assistance is needed.
Help and support
If you have a support plan and you need technical help, create a support request.
Under Issue type, select Technical.
Under Subscription, select your subscription.
Under Service, select My services.
Under Service type, select Virtual Machine running Windows/Linux.
Under Summary, enter the summary of your request.
Under Problem type, select Assistance with resizing my VM.
Under Problem subtype, select the option that applies to you.
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