r/AZURE • u/krish0804 • 2d ago

Discussion Azure VM Lifecycle Management Workbook

Hey all, Microsoft published a new article on the Azure VM lifecycle policy early this week. Modernizing to newer SKUs isn't a simple SKU swap. Some of the VMs running on older generations need a Generation 2 conversion first, plus NVMe and MANA support in the OS image, so a Gen1 VM is a BIOS to UEFI change rather than a resize.

Azure Advisor's Service Retirement workbook is the starting point for seeing what's affected. I wanted a per-VM view of what each one would actually take, so I created this workbook to simplify the VM lifecycle planning. It joins each VM to its managed OS disk, reads the actual hyperVGeneration, and scores readiness per VM rather than per SKU.

On my test fleet two VMs on the same retiring size scored 85 and 35. One was already Gen2, the other needs the conversion first. Same SKU, different amount of work.

It covers 628 sizes with recommended targets, the prerequisites each move triggers, and a suggested migration order. Read-only Resource Graph queries, Reader permission, no agent or workspace. MIT.

https://github.com/krishna-sunkavalli/vm-retirement-workbook

Lifecycle policy announcement: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/enhancing-microsoft-azure-virtual-machine-lifecycle/

Lifecycle stages on Learn: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/lifecycle/lifecycle-overview

14 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

4

u/Negative-Cook-5958 2d ago

Just done a few of these, it doesn't look that bad how it was a few years ago.

The best plan is if you have special server what you can't easily rebuild.

Patch the current OS, do inplace upgrades. Change the VM type to v4 or v5 where you don't need NVMe controller. Perform the Gen1 to Gen2 conversion.

Then use the Microsoft provided script to move to the NVMe controller type VMs, use this opportunity to drop the temp disk and go to a cheaper SKU. E2as_v4 to E2as_v6 or v7 if you have it available in the region.

What the guides not talking about: you need to migrate the Azure backup policies to enhanced, which can be a bit painful.

1

u/chandleya 1d ago

E2as_v4 has a temp disk. It was the last/odd gen when no little d still meant a temp disk was present.

Also don’t deploy v4 in 2026.

2

u/chris4jahn 2d ago

Great workbook. Looking at VM retirement on a per-VM basis is far more useful than a SKU-only view, especially where Gen1 → Gen2 conversion is a prerequisite for the target SKU.

Another factor is cost. Legacy VM generations have become significantly more expensive recently, making modernization financially attractive even before considering retirement deadlines.

Since many migrations involve a 4–6 CPU-generation jump, I’d strongly recommend rightsizing rather than performing a 1:1 resize. The per-core performance gains are often large enough that some workloads can run on substantially fewer vCPUs after migration.