Azure Virtual Machines

What are the best Azure VM families for HPC workloads?

The HBv3-series (AMD EPYC CPUs), HBvmigrated_instances (Intel Xeon Scalable Processors), and NDv2-series (NVIDIA GPUs) are specifically optimized for HPC workloads, offering high compute performance, memory bandwidth, and GPU acceleration.

How can I enable high-speed networking for HPC workloads on Azure?

Precisely, one of the Azure VMs beneficial aspects is the possibility to add up or down compute resources based on your workload needs. You can use the auto-scaling functions or help yourselves with managing the number of VMs according to the varying HPC requirements.

Can I scale my HPC resources on Azure dynamically?

Yes, one of the key advantages of Azure VMs is the ability to scale compute resources up or down based on your workload demands. You can leverage auto-scaling features or manually adjust the number of VMs to match your HPC requirements.

How can I optimize costs for HPC workloads on Azure?

Azure has become a platform for introducing cost optimization procedures, for example, by using less prior VMs, Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances, and by applying Azure Hybrid Benefit for the licensing. Besides, this you may use Azure Spot Virtual Machines for especially workloads, which contain no specific duration. Such workloads are interruptible.

What Azure services can I integrate with Azure VMs for HPC?

Azure offers several services that further improve user experience in the respect concerning fast and smart workload scheduling (with Azure Batch), efficient HPC cluster management (via Azure CycleCloud), high-performance file storage (Azure NetApp Files), and building and deploying machine learning models (using Azure Machine Learning).

Through Azure Virtual Machines, HPC jobs can take advantage of the platform’s powerful and scalable nature, which is offered in the cloud environment. The possibility to boot virtual machines chosen for compute-intensive purposes helps to execute, e.g., simulations and big data analysis with ease. From one-node Batch compute virtual machines to fine-tuned compute pipe using Azure Batch or Azure CycleCloud solutions, you may choose between the broadest range of computing infrastructure for your HPC needs. Azure provides a large number of VM sizes with full cores CPU, and high-end memory configuration to handle even the toughest computational tasks.