Blog Post

Azure Lab Services Blog
1 MIN READ

Hardware support change with GPU labs that use lab accounts

nicolehaugen's avatar
nicolehaugen
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Jan 03, 2024

Azure Datacenters regularly refresh hardware to ensure the highest quality offerings are available. An upcoming hardware change will impact specific lab account-based GPU SKUs. This is due to the Azure virtual machine families (NV and NC) that back these specific virtual machines sizes being deprecated.

 

If you have labs using a lab account created before February 22, 2024 with one of these virtual machine sizes:

  • Small GPU (Compute)
  • Small GPU (Visualization)
  • Medium GPU (Visualization)

Please finish using your current lab setup by July 15, 2024, to avoid any issues. If you need to use labs with these specific virtual machine sizes after that date, then you'll have to set up a new lab which will have the latest hardware.

 

If you choose to continue labs with older hardware, you may receive an allocation error similar to:

"Unable to start due to Allocation failed. We do not have sufficient capacity for the requested VM size in this region."

 

Lab Account GPU SKU Q&A

 

  • Which specific GPU SKUs are impacted?
    • Lab account-based labs created before February 22, 2024 using:
      • Small GPU (Visualization)
      • Medium GPU (Visualization)
      • Small GPU (Compute)) 
  • How long will I have to transition?
    • Until July 15, 2024
  • Which is recommended?
    • For Lab Accounts, create a new lab before July 15, 2024.  You do not need to move to using Lab Plans.
  • Are there any cost differences?
    • No, costs will remain the same.
  • Is performance different?
    • Yes, performance should be better for all SKUs involved.
  • Are labs with lab plan impacted?
    • No, they are not.

Updated Apr 05, 2024
Version 6.0

8 Comments

  • afshinmassah68's avatar
    afshinmassah68
    Copper Contributor

    Thank you Luren!

    I look forward to hearing from you soon as we are using this service in a university!

  • afshinmassah68's avatar
    afshinmassah68
    Copper Contributor

    Hi Nicole,

    I am seeing this message in the Azure lab services platform. I haven't created any  VM with the above-mentioned sizes. Could you please tell me how I can find out which labs and VMs will be affected after July 15?


    Thank you.
    Afshin

  • FranklinIH - We have validated that you should now also be able to create new GPU Visualization labs without any issue.  However, there are certain regions where this sku isn't supported which may be attributing to the issue you're seeing.  Could you try a different region than you currently are using to see if you have different results?  I'll also message you directly to follow up on this further.

  • FranklinIH's avatar
    FranklinIH
    Copper Contributor

    Can anyone confirm this is all set now?  I'm still getting errors when attempting to create new labs using GPU (Visualization) configurations.

  • Fawad_Khan's avatar
    Fawad_Khan
    Former Employee

    The issue has been mitigated. You should be able to start the VMs now without any errors. Thank you for your patience.

     

    Cheers,

    Fawad

  • Mark_Wilding's avatar
    Mark_Wilding
    Copper Contributor

    Hi Nicole,

     

    Yes, we need an ETA to inform our users... We had an entire cohort of students carrying out an assessment over the Christmas break, due to be handed in at the end of this week. Their work is now locked within machines that cannot start! They are understandably anxious.

     

    Mark

  • JoeHarrison's avatar
    JoeHarrison
    Copper Contributor

    Hi Nicole,

     

    Is there an ETA on this?  As you can imagine, this has wiped out our labs!

     

    Thanks,

    Joe