Azure continuously advances through new infrastructure generations, platform capabilities, services, and innovations that lead the industry in performance, security, reliability, and efficiency. Our Virtual Machine (VM) Lifecycle policy guides how we manage these transitions, giving Azure customers transparency, predictability, and guidance to plan for and execute technology changes with confidence. Our goal is to help every organization plan and navigate these modernization steps in line with Azure’s latest innovations and ongoing platform investments.
To give you access to the most advanced cloud and AI infrastructure, deployed on the most sophisticated silicon and hardware, the Azure Virtual Machine lifecycle is built around three customer outcomes:
- Transparency to easily understand the lifecycle status of Azure technologies, Microsoft’s level of ongoing investment, and the recommended path forward as new innovations become available.
- Predictability to plan against defined lifecycle stages, understand what to expect at each stage, and advance notice as technologies progress through their lifecycle.
- Guidance to help you modernize and adopt newer technologies rapidly and with confidence, along with AI-led tooling to accelerate workload transitions and recommendations.
This lifecycle provides a shared taxonomy, common stages, and consistent commitments for how we communicate technology evolution.
Azure General Purpose, Memory Optimized, Compute Optimized, and Storage Optimized VMs are the first VM families covered by this policy.
The lifecycle stages, spanning Current, Extended, End of Life, and Retired, are defined below, with dedicated Microsoft investment levels, regional and quota availability, applicable purchasing options, and pricing. The policy establishes clear lifecycle stages, expected customer experiences, and Microsoft’s commitments at each stage so customers can confidently plan, deploy, and modernize workloads over time.
Note: Lifecycle details described in this policy represent general guidance and may be subject to product-specific, regional, or operational exceptions.
Platform experiences and tools to help simplify transitions
Microsoft is committed to helping you modernize your workload portfolio with the greatest possible speed, confidence, and simplicity. Azure Advisor and Azure Service Health give you clear insight into your subscriptions and resources—helping you discover upcoming VM retirements, identify affected resources, and track your modernization progress with recommended actions built in. Beyond this, Microsoft is investing in intelligent, AI-augmented tools designed to apply lifecycle guidance across your entire workload portfolio, further reducing friction as you modernize.
Microsoft is committed to helping you navigate these infrastructure transitions and take advantage of the next wave of innovation. As Azure continues to advance, our commitment is to make change predictable, transparent, and supported through clear lifecycle guidance, early visibility, and practical help to modernize with confidence. This policy is an important step toward making modernization easier to plan, simpler to execute, and more valuable for every Azure customer.
For more information about the Azure Virtual Machines lifecycle, visit the VM lifecycle overview page.