azure-virtual-machines

name	azure-virtual-machines
description	Expert knowledge for Azure Virtual Machines development including troubleshooting, best practices, decision making, architecture & design patterns, limits & quotas, security, configuration, integrations & coding patterns, and deployment. Use when choosing VM/managed disk SKUs, configuring scale sets, Trusted Launch, ADE/CMK encryption, or HPC/GPU workloads, and other Azure Virtual Machines related development tasks. Not for Azure Data Science Virtual Machines (use azure-data-science-vm), Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets (use azure-vm-scalesets), SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (use azure-sql-virtual-machines), Azure Cloud Services (use azure-cloud-services).
compatibility	Requires network access. Uses mcp_microsoftdocs:microsoft_docs_fetch or fetch_webpage to retrieve documentation.
metadata	{"generated_at":"2026-04-19","generator":"docs2skills/1.0.0"}

Azure Virtual Machines Skill

This skill provides expert guidance for Azure Virtual Machines. Covers troubleshooting, best practices, decision making, architecture & design patterns, limits & quotas, security, configuration, integrations & coding patterns, and deployment. It combines local quick-reference content with remote documentation fetching capabilities.

How to Use This Skill

IMPORTANT for Agent: Use the Category Index below to locate relevant sections. For categories with line ranges (e.g., L35-L120), use read_file with the specified lines. For categories with file links (e.g., [security.md](security.md)), use read_file on the linked reference file

IMPORTANT for Agent: If metadata.generated_at is more than 3 months old, suggest the user pull the latest version from the repository. If mcp_microsoftdocs tools are not available, suggest the user install it: Installation Guide

This skill requires network access to fetch documentation content:

• Preferred: Use mcp_microsoftdocs:microsoft_docs_fetch with query string from=learn-agent-skill. Returns Markdown.
• Fallback: Use fetch_webpage with query string from=learn-agent-skill&accept=text/markdown. Returns Markdown.

Category Index

Category	Location	Description
Troubleshooting	L37-L61	Diagnosing and fixing Azure VM issues: hibernation, disk encryption, extensions, NSG blocking, Spot/scale set errors, Image Builder, kernel/packages, Trusted Launch, and gallery images.
Best Practices	L62-L88	Performance, scaling, HA, and cost-optimization best practices for Azure VMs, including HPC/InfiniBand tuning, disks/snapshots, OS-specific tweaks, and Image Builder/boot-time optimization.
Decision Making	L89-L156	Guidance for choosing VM/disk types, costs, licensing, DNS/images, and backup/DR, plus detailed migration and retirement paths for VM series, disks, OSes, GPU/HPC, Oracle, and WebLogic workloads
Architecture & Design Patterns	L157-L174	Design patterns for VM-based architectures: multi-region and fleet strategies, NUMA/topology tuning for HPC SKUs, low-latency placement, and Oracle/OpenShift deployment and DR designs.
Limits & Quotas	L175-L379	VM size specs, disk and storage performance limits, quotas, lifecycle/deprecation rules, and operational behaviors to plan capacity, performance, and compliance for Azure VMs.
Security	L380-L458	Securing Azure VMs and disks: encryption (ADE, CMK, double/host), Key Vault, TLS, Trusted Launch, OS Guard, MSP/metadata hardening, RBAC/Policy, and secure image/gallery sharing.
Configuration	configuration.md	Configuring Azure VMs and scale sets: images, disks, networking, extensions, monitoring, maintenance, HPC/GPU, OS agents, SSH/WinRM, Oracle workloads, and automation via CLI/ARM/Bicep.
Integrations & Coding Patterns	integrations.md	Managing and automating Azure VMs with CLI/PowerShell/REST: backups, snapshots, disk encryption, maintenance/availability monitoring, Key Vault, networking, and Oracle DB integration.
Deployment	deployment.md	Deploying and migrating Azure VMs/AKS nodes: disk type moves, regional/zonal moves, in-place OS upgrades, blue-green/rolling deployments, and DevOps-based image and snapshot workflows.

Troubleshooting

Topic	URL
Troubleshoot Azure Linux Container Host kernel version issues	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-linux/troubleshoot-kernel
Troubleshoot Azure Linux Container Host package upgrade failures	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-linux/troubleshoot-packages
Resolve Azure Spot VM and scale set error codes	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/error-codes-spot
Troubleshoot Azure Windows VM extension failures	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/extensions/troubleshoot
Troubleshoot common issues on Azure HPC and GPU VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/hb-hc-known-issues
Diagnose and fix Azure VM hibernation issues	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/hibernate-resume-troubleshooting
Diagnose and fix Azure cloud-init VM provisioning issues	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/cloud-init-troubleshooting
Troubleshoot Azure Disk Encryption on isolated Linux networks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/disk-encryption-isolated-network
Troubleshoot Azure Disk Encryption on Linux VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/disk-encryption-troubleshooting
Troubleshoot hibernation problems on Linux Azure VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/hibernate-resume-troubleshooting-linux
Connect to Azure Image Builder build VMs for debugging

Best Practices

Topic	URL
Apply scaling best practices for Azure HPC apps	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/compiling-scaling-applications
Scale and tune HPC applications on Azure VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/compiling-scaling-applications
Optimize InfiniBand-enabled H-series and N-series VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/configure
Optimize InfiniBand-enabled H-series and N-series VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/configure
Apply best practices for Azure VM cost optimization	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/cost-optimization-best-practices
Benchmark applications using Azure Disk Storage	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-benchmarks
Apply high-availability best practices for VMs and disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-high-availability
Use incremental snapshots for Azure managed disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-incremental-snapshots
Optimize VM and disk performance on Azure	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-performance
Enable and tune InfiniBand on Azure HPC VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/extensions/enable-infiniband
Handle VM extensions on Python 3-enabled Linux systems	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/extensions/issues-using-vm-extensions-python-3

Decision Making

Topic	URL
Choose Azure HPC/AI VM images for InfiniBand	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/azure-hpc-vm-images
Plan backup and disaster recovery for managed disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/backup-and-disaster-recovery-for-azure-iaas-disks
Use on-demand capacity reservations for Azure VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/capacity-reservation-overview
Choose between Azure VMs, VMSS, and Compute Fleet	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/compare-compute-products
Select constrained vCPU VM sizes for licensing	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/constrained-vcpu
Monitor and control Azure VM spending with Cost Management	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/cost-optimization-monitor-costs
Plan and estimate Azure VM costs using Cost Management	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/cost-optimization-plan-to-manage-costs
Plan migration from Azure Disk Encryption to encryption at host	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disk-encryption-migrate
Choose options to improve Azure disk performance	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-performance-options
Select redundancy options for Azure managed disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-redundancy
Plan and purchase Azure Disk Storage reservations

Architecture & Design Patterns

Topic	URL
Choose Azure Compute Fleet allocation strategies	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-compute-fleet/allocation-strategies
Design multi-region deployments with Azure Compute Fleet	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-compute-fleet/multi-region-compute-fleet
Use proximity placement groups to minimize VM latency	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/co-location
Architect clustered workloads with Azure shared disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-shared
HBv3 VM architecture and NUMA-aware placement	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/hbv3-series-overview
HBv4 VM architecture, topology, and NUMA layout	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/hbv4-series-overview
HBv5 VM architecture and NUMA-aware design	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/hbv5-series-overview
HC VM architecture and NUMA-aware placement	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/hc-series-overview
Design OpenShift deployments on Azure Stack Hub	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/openshift-azure-stack
Reference architectures for Oracle apps and DB on Azure VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/workloads/oracle/deploy-application-oracle-database-azure
Design Oracle disaster recovery architectures on Azure	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/workloads/oracle/oracle-disaster-recovery

Limits & Quotas

Topic	URL
Plan around Azure Linux Container Host support lifecycle	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-linux/support-cycle
Understand Azure VM sizes without temp disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/azure-vms-no-temp-disk
Understand Azure VM compute throttling limits	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/compute-throttling-limits
Check support matrix and limits for Azure VM restore points	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/concepts-restore-points
Compute optimized Dedicated Host SKU capacities and packing	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/dedicated-host-compute-optimized-skus
General purpose Dedicated Host SKU capacities and packing	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/dedicated-host-general-purpose-skus
GPU optimized Dedicated Host SKU capacities and packing	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/dedicated-host-gpu-optimized-skus
Memory optimized Dedicated Host SKU capacities and packing	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/dedicated-host-memory-optimized-skus
Storage optimized Dedicated Host SKU capacities and packing	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/dedicated-host-storage-optimized-skus
Understand deprecation rules for Azure VM images	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/deprecated-images
Use Azure VM managed disk bursting performance limits

Security

Topic	URL
Understand Azure Linux with OS Guard security model	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-linux/intro-azure-linux-os-guard
Configure boot integrity monitoring and guest attestation for Trusted Launch VMs	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/boot-integrity-monitoring-overview
Configure server-side encryption for Azure managed disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disk-encryption
Understand encryption options for Azure managed disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disk-encryption-overview
Use disk encryption sets across Entra tenants	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-cross-tenant-customer-managed-keys
Enable customer-managed keys for disks in Azure portal	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-enable-customer-managed-keys-portal
Configure double encryption at rest for managed disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-enable-double-encryption-at-rest-portal
Configure encryption at host for Azure managed disks	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-enable-host-based-encryption-portal
Enable Private Link for managed disk import/export in portal	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-enable-private-links-for-import-export-portal
Configure restrictions on Azure managed disk import/export	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/disks-restrict-import-export-overview