Pick the best Azure VMs for your project and save money

Azure Virtual machines are a powerful and flexible way to run different workloads and solutions on the same hardware. But with so many options and features available, how do you choose the right one for your needs and budget? We’ve helped dozens of partners choose the right VM for their specific solution being sold to their customer and has come with its challenges -Was it the right choice? Would the technology be suitable enough? Did I assign too much storage to my VMs? This really looks like an overkill in resources. These are questions that constantly come up when choosing the right VM?

Microsoft has developed some tools for ease of choice and to aid the growing demand of cloud resources.

Workload Type

Workload types are categories of applications or services that run on Microsoft Azure. They help you choose the best Azure products and services for your needs, based on factors such as performance, scalability, availability, security, and cost. Some interesting examples would be web applications, data analytics, A. I., and Internet of Things.

Depending on the workload type, you may need to use different Azure resources, such as virtual machines, containers, databases, storage accounts, or functions. You may also need to configure different aspects of your workload, such as networking, backup, monitoring, or encryption. To optimize your workload for Azure. A good feature is that you can follow the best practices and recommendations for each workload type.

VMs by Operating System or Software

If you are looking for a specific type of VM on Azure, you can use filters to narrow down your search. Filters allow you to select criteria such as operating system, software, region, size, and pricing.

One of the benefits of using these features, also depending on your needs and preferences, you can choose from Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, or Oracle Linux. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages, such as compatibility, security, performance, and cost. For example, Windows is widely used amongst our partner’s customers and compatible with many applications, but it also requires more resources and licenses than Linux.

Linux is open source and customizable, but it may have less support and documentation than Windows. FreeBSD is like Linux, but it has a different kernel and licensing model. Oracle Linux is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and offers some additional features and services from Oracle.

VMs by Deployment Region

Deployment regions are geographical areas where Azure operates its data centers and services. They are used to optimize the performance, availability, and compliance of your cloud applications and data.

When you select a deployment region for your VM, you are choosing where to host your compute resources and store your data. Depending on your specific workloads, you may want to consider factors such as latency, network bandwidth, redundancy, data sovereignty, and cost when selecting a deployment region. For the sake of explaination, if your workload requires low latency and high availability, you may want to choose a region that is close to your users and has multiple availability zones. If your workload involves sensitive data that must comply with certain regulations, you may want to choose a region that meets the required standards and offers the necessary services.

Other offerings

There are more ways to discover what Microsoft Azure has to offer in terms of VMs for workloads and are often coupled with the right choice of Azure Disk Storage offerings to provide your VMs with high-performance, secure, and durable block storage.

The Azure Marketplace is great place to explore popular use cases and solutions like Oracle, SAP, MongoDB, SQL Server, Ubuntu, and Red Hat.

Reference architectures are diagrams and technology descriptions for reference architectures and are real world examples of cloud architectures and solution ideas for common workloads on Azure. The task of finding the right VM for your customer’s workload could be a daunting task for those not in the know or lack the Azure expertise. If this is you, then contact our Surestep Ambassadors at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to benefit from their expert advice other Azure related services.