Azure B Series Virtual Machines for All Your Needs

Azure B Series Virtual Machines are designed to provide a cost-effective solution for a wide range of workloads, from development and testing to production environments.

They offer a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which means you only pay for what you use, reducing waste and saving you money in the long run.

B Series VMs are powered by Intel Xeon Platinum 8168 processors, providing a high level of performance and reliability.

With up to 160 vCPUs and 3.6 TB of memory, you can run demanding workloads with ease.

Azure B Series Virtual Machines offer a unique way to host workloads with varying resource requirements. They provide burstable performance at a budget-friendly price.

You can choose from six B-Series VM sizes, which are designed to handle workloads that typically run at a low to moderate baseline CPU utilization. These sizes are perfect for development and test servers, low-traffic web servers, small databases, micro services, servers for proof-of-concepts, and build servers.

Each B-Series VM starts out with credits based on the formula: number of VM cores * 30. For example, a single VM core has a credit value of 30, while a four-core VM has a credit value of 120.

A key feature of B-Series VMs is their ability to accumulate and consume CPU credits during periods of low usage. This allows you to bank CPU credits during low-consumption periods to use during high-consumption periods, when you need to scale up your CPU performance.

Here are the estimated costs per month in USD for the six B-Series sizes currently in Preview:

A single-core VM has a baseline CPU performance level of 10%, while a four-core VM has a baseline performance level of 90%.

A B-series VM accumulates credits when running below its base CPU performance level, and consumes credits when utilizing the CPU more than its base CPU performance level.

To calculate credit accumulation and consumption, customers can use the 'credits banked per minute' formula: ((Base CPU performance * number of vCPU) - (Percentage CPU * number of vCPU))/100.

This formula is crucial in understanding how credits are allocated for B-series VMs, and can be applied to various scenarios, such as deploying the Standard_B2ts_v2 VM size with a workload demanding 10% of the CPU performance.

For example, with the Standard_B2ts_v2 VM size, a 10% CPU performance demand results in a credit accumulation of 0.2 credits/minute, while a 60% CPU performance demand for the Standard_B32as_v2 VM size results in a credit consumption of -6.4 credits/minute.

Azure offers a range of VM sizes, each optimized for specific workloads, such as general purpose, compute optimized, memory optimized, storage optimized, GPU optimized, and high performance compute.

Azure Pricing offers a range of options to suit different workload needs. For example, the B-Series VM sizes are ideal for "burstable" workloads that don't require full CPU utilization.

The B-Series VM sizes are economical and provide a low-cost option for workloads that typically run at a low to moderate baseline CPU utilization, but sometimes need to burst to significantly higher CPU utilization when the demand rises.

Bs-series VMs are not hyperthreaded, making them suitable for workloads like development and test servers, low-traffic web servers, small databases, micro services, servers for proof-of-concepts, and build servers.

To calculate the credits accumulation and consumption rates, customers can use the holistic 'credits banked per minute' formula: ((Base CPU performance * number of vCPU) - (Percentage CPU * number of vCPU))/100.

Here are some examples of how to use the 'credits banked per minute' formula:

A VM has a net credit increase whenever it's running below its base CPU performance level and will have a net decrease in credits whenever the VM is utilizing the CPU more than its base CPU performance level.

Azure B-series VMs are not available in every Azure region, so be sure to check availability before deployment.

Their hardware and software configurations are the same as other Azure VM families, making them a reliable choice for many users.

These bursty VM types are similar to Amazon Web Services' T2 instances, which are designed for low-traffic websites and proofs of concept.

Azure B Series virtual machines are designed to help businesses optimize costs by paying only for the resources they consume. This is made possible by the burstable performance feature, which ensures users pay for baseline performance during periods of low activity.

One of the key advantages of B Series VMs is their ability to accumulate and utilize CPU credits. During periods of low usage, the VMs earn credits, which can be used to burst to higher CPU performance levels when the workload demands it.

Businesses can allocate resources effectively by choosing the appropriate VM size for their workload requirements. This flexibility enables them to scale up or down as needed without overprovisioning and wasting resources.

Azure provides comprehensive monitoring and management tools for B Series VMs, allowing users to keep track of CPU utilization, credit consumption, and performance metrics. This visibility enables businesses to optimize resource allocation and make informed decisions regarding workload management and scaling.

By using Azure B Series VMs, businesses can enjoy cost-effective scalability and flexible resource allocation. This means they can pay only for the resources they use and scale up or down as needed.

Azure B Series VMs are perfect for development and testing environments, where workloads can be unpredictable. This is because they offer a burstable performance feature that allows you to handle peak demand without investing in high-performance VMs continuously.

Developers can save a lot of money by using B Series VMs for development and testing. They're ideal for handling sporadic workloads, like software builds, testing, and debugging.

For web servers and small applications, B Series VMs are a great choice. They provide a cost-effective solution for handling variable workloads without compromising performance.

B Series VMs are also well-suited for batch processing tasks and data analytics workloads. They can handle spikes in processing demand effectively, ensuring efficient data processing and analysis.

The base CPU performance of B Series VMs is a key feature. It allows the VM to accumulate CPU credits when it's idle or using only a fraction of its allocated CPU. These credits are then consumed when the VM requires more CPU performance than its baseline.

Here are the main use cases for Azure B Series VMs: