{"id":19548,"date":"2016-06-13T11:05:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T10:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=19548"},"modified":"2016-06-13T11:07:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T10:07:49","slug":"new-f-series-virtual-machines-in-azure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=19548","title":{"rendered":"New F-Series Virtual Machines in Azure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, Microsoft announced a new series of virtual machines called the F-Series. There\u2019s quite a bit in this announcement.<\/p>\n<h2>New Sizing<\/h2>\n<p>One of the things that has wrecked my head in Azure is that the virtual machines had unusual memory sizes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1.75 GB RAM<\/li>\n<li>3.5 GB RAM<\/li>\n<li>7 GB RAM<\/li>\n<li>14 GB RAM<\/li>\n<li>etc<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And someone will ask for pricing assistance with a request for machines with 8 GB RAM \u2026 OK \u2026 do you want 7 GB or 14 GB, because Azure is McDonalds, not a Michelin star restaurant so you get what\u2019s on the menu. not what you fancy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" title=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image_thumb.png\" alt=\"image\" width=\"550\" height=\"541\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Other pieces of the sizing fall in line. So for example:<\/p>\n<p>The F2 has:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2 cores<\/li>\n<li>4 GB RAM (2x cores)<\/li>\n<li>Up to 4 data disks (2x cores)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you go up the size chart, the same pattern emerges. A F16 has:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>16 cores<\/li>\n<li>32 GB RAM (2x cores)<\/li>\n<li>Up to 32 data disks (2x cores)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This should make sizing easier.<\/p>\n<p>Note that the processor is the same 2.4-GHz Intel Xeon E5-2673 v3 (up to 3.1 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0) as in the Dv2-Series, but at a lower price per core.<\/p>\n<h2>New Naming Standard<\/h2>\n<p>While Microsoft is simplifying the sizing, they have decided to change the naming standard to match the sizes. In the past we had:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Standard A1<\/li>\n<li>Standard A2<\/li>\n<li>Standard A3<\/li>\n<li>Standard A4<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The name was nothing but a label that had no correlation to either the spec or the price &#8211; in some cases, there was a drop in price as you moved up the \u201csizes\u201d (see A4 to A5 or D4 to D11).<\/p>\n<p>The name of the F-Series is tied to the number of cores in the machine. So, an F1 machine has 1 core. An F16 machine has 16 cores.<\/p>\n<p>Before, we showed special features, such as the use of Premium Storage (S is for SSD), by adding a letter to the series of the machine. For example, a D4 virtual machine could be deployed as a DS4 virtual machine.<\/p>\n<p>Starting with the F-Series, any special features are shown by adding a letter to the end of the spec. So, an F4 might be deployed as an F4s.<\/p>\n<h2>Availability<\/h2>\n<p>The F-Series is <a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/regions\/#services\" target=\"_blank\">pretty widely available<\/a> right now, through Azure V1 and Azure V2. Note that I am seeing a some glitches with the displayed pricing in the Azure Portal (via Open). Please get your direct\/Open pricing from the <a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/pricing\/details\/virtual-machines\/#Windows\" target=\"_blank\">official site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" title=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image_thumb1.png\" alt=\"image\" width=\"550\" height=\"458\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:0b6cb56f-58a1-4188-98aa-855b753ca1a9\" class=\"wlWriterEditableSmartContent\" style=\"float: none; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding: 0px;\">Technorati Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/Azure\" rel=\"tag\">Azure<\/a>,<a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/Virtualisation\" rel=\"tag\">Virtualisation<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, Microsoft announced a new series of virtual machines called the F-Series. There\u2019s quite a bit in this announcement. New Sizing One of the things that has wrecked my head in Azure is that the virtual machines had unusual memory sizes: 1.75 GB RAM 3.5 GB RAM 7 GB RAM 14 GB RAM etc &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=19548\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;New F-Series Virtual Machines in Azure&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[170,195],"class_list":["post-19548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azure","tag-azure","tag-virtualisation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/2016-Ford-F-Series1.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19551,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19548\/revisions\/19551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}