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Azure's basic instances level up and gain new naming scheme

It looks a lot like Redmond has new servers with faster disks on tap

Microsoft's levelling up its A-series Azure virtual machines, the vanilla instances in its cloud, and has a new way of letting you know whats under the hood of a cloudy computer.

The instances first: we're guessing that the seven new A_v2-Series instances run on new hardware because how else would Microsoft claim 2-10x faster random disk IOPS and a big RAM increase?

Here's the specs for the new instances.

Size

vCPU

RAM (GiB)

Temporary Disk (SSD)

Max Network Bandwidth

Standard_A1_v2

1

2

10 GB

Moderate

Standard_A2_v2

2

4

20 GB

Moderate

Standard_A4_v2

4

8

40 GB

High

Standard_A8_v2

8

16

80 GB

High

Standard_A2m_v2

2

16

20 GB

Moderate

Standard_A4m_v2

4

32

40 GB

High

Standard_A8m_v2

8

64

80 GB

High

And here's how they compare to the old A-Series.

 

Size

vCPU

RAM (GiB)

Disk Size

 

Size

vCPU

RAM (GiB)

Disk Size

A1

1

1.75

20 GB (HDD)

A1_v2

1

2

10 GB (SSD)

A2

2

3.50

70 GB (HDD)

A2_v2

2

4

20 GB (SSD)

A3

4

7

285 GB (HDD)

A4_v2

4

8

40 GB (SSD)

A4

8

14

605 GB (HDD)

A8_v2

8

16

80 GB (SSD)

A5

2

14

135 GB (HDD)

A2m_v2

2

16

20 GB (SSD)

A6

4

26

285 GB (HDD)

A4m_v2

4

32

40 GB (SSD)

A7

8

52

605 GB (HDD)

A8m_v2

8

64

80 GB (SSD)

Another new feature of these instances is their names, which now explain their specifications.

The first character – A – indicates the family of VMs to which the instance belongs.

Next comes a numeral indicating the number of virtual CPUs. If the next character is an “m” that means it is a high memory VM with 8GB per vCPU.

Microsoft says the new VM type will soon be available in all Azure regions. Surely another sign new kit's been unloaded of late?

And news of the new VMs is probably a sign Microsoft wants to make a little noise before Amazon Web Services' Re:invent conference next week. ®

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