I have a bit of a unique idea: what if there was a way to specify, "I don't care which datacenter my virtual machines (VMs) run in, as long as they're in Europe?" Similar to how Azure lets you select from different sizes and then chooses the best fit. It would be even better if they waived cross-region bandwidth fees for that.
For now, I have several CPU-intensive tasks that don't rely much on bandwidth, so latency and charges aren't big concerns. Does anyone know which datacenter is currently the least busy? I recall a while back that there were discounts for using one of the datacenters in Sweden.
5 Answers
Currently, Azure doesn’t support a blanket 'any region in Europe' option, and it likely won’t due to the complications with cross-region bandwidth costs and data residency rules. You can check the SKU availability page for insights into current capacity. Regions like Sweden Central, Norway East, and Switzerland North typically have more room available since their demand is lower compared to West Europe or North Europe. Also, for your CPU-heavy tasks, consider using Spot VMs in underutilized areas—they often get evicted less frequently than in busier regions like West Europe, where I've seen a 70% eviction rate compared to only about 10% in Switzerland North.
Working for a company that relies heavily on Azure, I finally found a solution to their ongoing capacity issues: shifting to AWS. Honestly, I’m fed up with Microsoft's restrictions.
Microsoft recommended using fleets during our last chat with them about a month ago. They recently rolled out Azure Compute Fleet, which can help with managing resources more efficiently.
Sweden is still a solid choice! I usually check out cloudprice.net to find the cheapest region for whatever VM size I need. It's been pretty reliable for that.
While this idea is great for some resources, it doesn't really apply to everything. There are issues with region pairing, especially since we've been told for years that there's not enough capacity in Azure East US, even though that’s what we were advised to use ages ago.
Yeah, I get that it optimizes sizes, but the fleet must be within the same region. I was hoping for the flexibility to use a range of regions, like how Windows 365 allows multiple selections.