Azure E Series PerformanceCap: A Guide to Better Performance

The Azure E Series PerformanceCap is a feature designed to improve the performance of Azure E-series virtual machines. This feature allows for a higher CPU performance, making it ideal for resource-intensive workloads.

To take advantage of the PerformanceCap, you'll need to ensure that your virtual machine is running on the E-series v2 or v3 hardware. This is because the PerformanceCap is only available on these hardware generations.

By enabling the PerformanceCap, you can expect a significant boost in CPU performance, with some users reporting up to a 25% increase in CPU utilization. This can be especially beneficial for workloads that rely heavily on CPU resources.

The Azure E Series offers a range of sizes to suit different performance needs. Each size is designed to provide a specific amount of vCPUs and memory.

You can choose from sizes like Standard_E2_v5, Standard_E4_v5, and Standard_E8_v5, which offer 2, 4, and 8 vCPUs respectively. The memory ranges from 16 GB for the Standard_E2_v5 to 64 GB for the Standard_E8_v5.

The number of vCPUs increases as you move up the size range. For example, Standard_E16_v5 offers 16 vCPUs, while Standard_E20_v5 offers 20 vCPUs. This allows you to scale your resources according to your needs.

Here's a breakdown of the sizes and their corresponding vCPUs and memory:

Azure E series VMs offer a range of sizes to suit different performance needs, with varying vCPU quotas and storage options.

The Standard_E2_v5 size has a vCPU quota of 1, while the Standard_E96_v5 size has a vCPU quota of 32. This means that larger VMs can handle more compute-intensive workloads.

The number of remote storage disks also varies by VM size, with the Standard_E2_v5 size allowing 4 disks and the Standard_E104i_v5 size allowing 64 disks. This can be important for applications that require a lot of storage capacity.

Here's a summary of the key differences between some of the E series VM sizes:

These differences can impact performance, so it's essential to choose the right VM size for your specific needs.

VM Basics Resources are essential for understanding how to manage and optimize your Virtual Machines (VMs). VM Basics resources can be found in various places, but the most important ones are the ones provided by your cloud provider.

You can check your vCPU quotas to ensure you're not exceeding the limits set by your provider. This is crucial for preventing performance issues and unexpected costs.

The Standard_E2_v5 VM size has a maximum of 4 remote storage disks. This is a key consideration when planning your storage needs.

The uncached premium SSD disk IOPS for the Standard_E2_v5 VM size is 3750. This indicates the maximum number of input/output operations per second that can be handled by the disk.

The uncached premium SSD throughput for the Standard_E2_v5 VM size is 85 MB/s. This is the maximum amount of data that can be transferred per second.

The following table provides a comparison of the key resources for each VM size:

Keep in mind that these are just a few examples, and you should always check the specific resources provided by your cloud provider for your VMs.

For another approach, see: Azure B Series

As you explore the world of virtual machines, it's essential to understand the basics of storage and performance. Storage capacity is shown in units of GiB, which may appear smaller than GB due to the difference in byte calculations.

For example, 1023 GiB equals 1098.4 GB. This is because GiB is measured in 1024^3 bytes, whereas GB is measured in 1000^3 bytes.

You can temporarily boost disk performance by bursting, which can be maintained for up to 30 minutes at a time. This feature is ideal for short-term tasks that require an extra speed boost.

Data disks can operate in either cached or uncached modes. Cached mode allows the host cache to be set to ReadOnly or ReadWrite, while uncached mode sets the host cache to None.

To get the best storage performance for your VMs, check out the Virtual machine and disk performance guide.

Azure's commitment to performance and consistency is evident in their approach to virtual machine sizes. They typically run with maximum performance on the hardware platform they're first released on.

To maintain consistent performance, Azure may place controls on older virtual machines when run on newer hardware. For example, D, E, and F series virtual machines may have the processor frequency set to a lower level to achieve better performance consistency.

A series virtual machines use an older model based on time slicing newer hardware to deliver performance consistency. This approach ensures that performance remains consistent across hardware versions.

Azure's B series virtual machines are burstable and use a credit system to achieve expected performance. This means that they can burst above their baseline performance for short periods of time, but will be throttled back to their baseline if they exceed their allocated credits.

To summarize, Azure's approach to performance and consistency involves setting processor frequencies and using credit systems to ensure that virtual machines perform consistently across different hardware platforms.

For your interest: Azure Time Series Database