GA: DCasv6 and ECasv6 confidential VMs based on 4th Generation AMD EPYC™ processors
Today, Azure has expanded its confidential computing offerings with the general availability of the DCasv6 and ECasv6 confidential VM series in regions UAE North and Korea Central. These VMs are powered by 4th generation AMD EPYC™ processors and feature advanced Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP) technology. These confidential VMs offer: Hardware-rooted attestation Memory encryption in multi-tenant environments Enhanced data confidentiality Protection against cloud operators, administrators, and insider threats You can get started today by creating confidential VMs in the Azure portal as explained here. Highlights: 4th generation AMD EPYC processors with SEV-SNP 25% performance improvement over previous generation Ability to rotate keys online AES-256 memory encryption enabled by default Up to 96 vCPUs and 672 GiB RAM for demanding workloads Streamlined Security Organizations in certain regulated industries and sovereign customers migrating to Microsoft Azure need strict security and compliance across all layers of the stack. With Azure Confidential VMs, organizations can ensure the integrity of the boot sequence and the OS kernel while helping administrators safeguard sensitive data against advanced and persistent threats. The DCasv6 and ECasv6 family of confidential VMs support online key rotation to give organizations the ability to dynamically adapt their defenses to rapidly evolving threats. Additionally, these new VMs include AES-256 memory encryption as a default feature. Customers have the option to use Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) in Windows, which is currently in preview to protect private keys from exfiltration via the Guest OS or applications. With VBS enabled, keys are isolated within a secure process, allowing key operations to be carried out without exposing them outside this environment. Faster Performance In addition to the newly announced security upgrades, the new DCasv6 and ECasv6 family of confidential VMs have demonstrated up to 25% improvement in various benchmarks compared to our previous generation of confidential VMs powered by AMD. Organizations that need to run complex workflows like combining multiple private data sets to perform joint analysis, medical research or Confidential AI services can use these new VMs to accelerate their sensitive workload faster than ever before. "While we began our journey with v5 confidential VMs, now we’re seeing noticeable performance improvements with the new v6 confidential VMs based on 4th Gen AMD EPYC “Genoa” processors. These latest confidential VMs are being rolled out across many Azure regions worldwide, including the UAE. So as v6 becomes available in more regions, we can deploy AMD based confidential computing wherever we need, with the same consistency and higher performance." — Mohammed Retmi, Vice President - Sovereign Public Cloud, at Core42, a G42 company. "KT is leveraging Azure confidential computing to secure sensitive and regulated data from its telco business in the cloud. With new V6 CVM offerings in Korea Central Region, KT extends its use to help Korean customers with enhanced security requirements, including regulated industries, benefit from the highest data protection as well as the fastest performance by the latest AMD SEV-SNP technology through its Secure Public Cloud built with Azure confidential computing." — Woojin Jung, EVP, KT Corporation Kubernetes support Deploy resilient, globally available applications on confidential VMs with our managed Kubernetes experience - Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). AKS now supports the new DCasv6 and ECasv6 family of confidential VMs, enabling organizations to easily deploy, scale and manage confidential Kubernetes clusters on Azure, streamlining developer workflows and reducing manual tasks with integrated continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. AKS brings integrated monitoring and logging to confidential VM node pools with in-depth performance and health insights, the clusters and containerized applications. Azure Linux 3.0 and Ubuntu 24.04 support are now in preview. AKS integration in this generation of confidential VMs also brings support for Azure Linux 3.0, that contains the most essential packages to be resource efficient and contains a secure, hardened Linux kernel specifically tuned for Azure cloud deployments. Ubuntu 24.04 clusters are also supported in addition to Azure Linux 3.0. Organizations wanting to ease the orchestration issues associated with deploying, scaling and managing hundreds of confidential VM node pools can now choose from either of these two for their node pools. General purpose & Memory-intensive workloads Featuring general purpose optimized memory-to-vCPU ratios and support for up to 96 vCPUs and 384 GiB RAM, the DCasv6-series delivers enterprise-grade performance. The DCasv6-series enables organizations to run sensitive workloads with hardware-based security guarantees, making them ideal for applications processing regulated or confidential data. For more memory demanding workloads that exceed even the capabilities of the DCasv6 series, the new ECasv6-series offer high memory-to-vCPU ratios with increased scalability up to 96 vCPUs and 672 GiB of RAM, nearly doubling the memory capacity of DCasv6. You can get started today by creating confidential VMs in the Azure portal as explained here. Additional Resources: Quickstart: Create confidential VM with Azure portal Quickstart: Create confidential VM with ARM template Azure confidential virtual machines FAQPreview: New DCasv6 and ECasv6 confidential VMs based on 4th Generation AMD EPYC™ processors
You can get started deploying your software on these confidential VMs by signing up here. Additional security enhancements With the launch of the DCasv6 and ECasv6 confidential VM family – we support AES-256 memory encryption enabled by default. Additionally, we now offer our customers the capability to leverage key protection with Virtualization-based Security (VBS) in Windows. By enabling key protection in Windows CVMs, customers can protect keys in-use from Guest OS and applications. This key protection is enforced by CPU hardware. Faster performance for confidential workloads These new CVMs have demonstrated up to 25% improvement in various benchmarks compared to our previous generation of AMD-based confidential VMs. KT is leveraging Azure confidential computing to secure sensitive and regulated data from its telco business in the cloud. With new V6 CVM offerings in Korea Central Region, KT extends its use to help Korean customers with enhanced security requirements, including regulated industries, benefit from the highest data protection as well as the fastest performance by the latest AMD SEV-SNP technology through its Secure Public Cloud built with Azure confidential computing. - Woojin Jung, EVP, KT Corporation Worldwide Region Availability These CVMs will be gradually made available across all supported Azure regions and availability zones. Please use the sign-up form to indicate interest in participating in the gated preview and regional requirements. General purpose & Memory-intensive workloads Featuring general purpose optimized memory-to-vCPU ratios and support up to 96 vCPUs and 384 GiB RAM, the DCasv6-series delivers enterprise-grade performance. The DCasv6-series enables organizations to run sensitive workloads with hardware-based security guarantees, making them ideal for applications processing regulated or confidential data. For more memory demanding workloads, the new ECasv6-series offer high memory-to-vCPU ratios with increased scalability up to 96 vCPUs and 672 GiB of RAM. The ECasv6-series is ideal for memory-intensive enterprise applications offering nearly double the memory capacity of DCasv6. The ECasv6-series scales 672 GiB RAM with up to 96 vCPUs, making them ideal for memory intensive applications that exceed even the capabilities of the DCasv6 series. DCasv6 DCadsv6 ECasv6 ECadsv6 vCPU 2 - 96 2 - 96 2 - 96 2 - 96 Memory 8 - 384 8 - 384 16 - 672 16 - 672 Max local disk NA 75-600GiB NA 75-600GiB OS Support These CVMs support the following guest operating systems: Windows Server 2019, 2022, 2025, Windows 11, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and RHEL 9.4. Endorsements from our customers The BMW Group relies on Azure confidential VMs powered by AMD EPYC processors to enable a Zero Trust environment with end-to-end encryption for our identity authentication system, allowing over 200,000 associates to collaborate on building the future of individual mobility. The solution was made possible in part due to the fact that AMD EPYC processor based confidential VMs do not require code changes to protect data in memory. Further, our testing of the newest generation of DCasv6 VMs has shown significant improvements in performance, and we look forward to seeing them go live on Azure. - BMW Group Having early access to Microsoft’s latest confidential VMs is a game-changer, offering enhanced security and performance. Our customers are pleased that they won’t have to adapt existing algorithms to take advantage of computing within the optimal CVM environment available in their computing region and selected within the EscrowAI platform. - Mary Beth Chalk, Co-founder & Chief Commercial Officer, BeeKeeperAI Anjuna is thrilled to be among the first to access Microsoft’s latest confidential VMs, powered by the newest version of the AMD SEV-SNP technology. Our ongoing partnership with Microsoft Azure provides us with early access to explore advanced security and performance features. This collaboration empowers joint Azure and Anjuna customers to leverage the newest Azure technologies from day one, enhanced by the capabilities of the Anjuna Seaglass platform. - Ofir Azoulay-Rozanes, Director of Product Management, Anjuna Security Sign up now for exclusive access Joining our exclusive preview program gives you an opportunity to work with the product team. To get started deploying your software on the latest confidential VMs sign up here.
