VM creation/deployment fails

Question

VM creation/deployment fails

Dan Sirbu 5 Microsoft Employee

VM deployment fails with SkuNotAvailable. D-series SKUs appear restricted for this subscription. Need 4 vCPU / 16 GB VM.

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Himanshu Shekhar 6,790 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-08T16:08:41.49+00:00
Dan Sirbu- please verify which VM sizes are available for your subscription in the target region

Microsoft documents using az vm list-skus to determine which VM SKUs are available in a specific location (and to help identify whether the SKU is available for the subscription in that location).

az vm list-skus --location canadacentral --size Standard_D --all --output table

Use an alternative VM size or an alternative region that meets your requirements (4 vCPU / 16 GiB)

Microsoft’s supported mitigation for SKU-not-available allocation failures is to try another VM size or deploy to a different location or zone. So, if your workload requirement is specifically “4 vCPU / 16 GiB,” the supported approach is:

Pick a different region where your subscription is allowed to deploy, and then

Select any available VM size that provides 4 vCPU and 16 GiB memory (as confirmed by az vm list-skus for that region).

If you must deploy in that specific region/SKU family, submit a SKU request to Azure Support

Microsoft’s documentation states that if a SKU isn’t available for your subscription in a location/zone that meets your business needs, you should submit a SKU request to Azure Support.

This is the supported path when you have a hard requirement for a specific region and/or VM family.

Resolve errors for SKU not available - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/troubleshooting/error-sku-not-available?tabs=azure-cli
Himanshu Shekhar 6,790 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-11T10:52:55.7366667+00:00

Dan Sirbu - Just checking if provided response was helpful! please let me know if you have any queries.
Dan Sirbu 5 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2026-05-12T13:16:54.6866667+00:00

I was allowed to create a VM on East US 2. In Canada central/east I'm not allowed. Canada east should have been better since it has to be "less" used than the US one. And it is closer to my Montreal location. I have hard time to create myself the support ticket due the AI tool so I kind of left it as is.
Himanshu Shekhar 6,790 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-14T08:48:03.44+00:00
What you are seeing is expected behavior when a specific VM SKU or capacity isn’t currently available for your subscription in a given region, even if that region seems “less used” than others. Availability is driven by actual physical capacity and SKU restrictions per region and per subscription, not just how popular a region appears overall.

When this happens you typically see either a SkuNotAvailable or AllocationFailed error telling you to “try another size or deploy to a different location,” which is exactly what you observed by succeeding in East US 2 while failing in Canada Central/East - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/allocation-failure

To move forward, we can follow Microsoft’s supported guidance for SKU/capacity issues. I’ll outline concrete options for you:

Check which 4‑vCPU / ~16 GiB SKUs are actually available to your subscription in Canada East/Central If you are comfortable running a couple of commands, please do the following and share the output:

Confirm subscription in CLI:

az account show --query "{name:name, id:id}" --output table

List 4‑vCPU, 16 GiB options in Canada East:

az vm list-skus \ --location canadaeast \ --all \ --query "[?capabilities[?name=='vCPUs' && value=='4'] && capabilities[?name=='MemoryGB' && value=='16']].{Name:name, Family:family, Tier:tier, Locations:locations}" \ --output table

If you want to try Canada Central as well:

az vm list-skus \ --location canadacentral \ --all \ --query "[?capabilities[?name=='vCPUs' && value=='4'] && capabilities[?name=='MemoryGB' && value=='16']].{Name:name, Family:family, Tier:tier, Locations:locations}" \ --output table

Under the hood, this uses the same mechanism Microsoft documents - https://docs.azure.cn/en-us/azure-resource-manager/templates/error-sku-not-available

(az vm list-skus / Get-AzComputeResourceSku) to see which SKUs are available and which are marked as not available for your subscription in that region.

If we see one or more 4‑vCPU / 16 GiB SKUs in the output, we can pick one of those and you can redeploy your VM with that size in Canada East/Central. If the output is empty or shows restrictions like NotAvailableForSubscription, that confirms the region has no suitable SKU for your subscription right now.

If a 4‑vCPU / 16 GiB SKU exists but you still get allocation errors - Even when a SKU is technically available, you can still hit AllocationFailed when there’s not enough free capacity for that size in that region or zone. In that case, Microsoft recommends:

Trying a slightly different size in the same family or a newer generation (for example, changing from a v3 to v4/v5 version of the same series).

Trying another availability zone in the same region if you are using zonal deployments.If this is a steady workload, optionally considering a capacity reservation in that region, which explicitly reserves capacity instead of relying on best-effort allocation.

If you must be in Canada East/Central and no suitable SKU/capacity is available
Karanam Shrivasta 0 Reputation points

2026-05-14T13:17:27.3466667+00:00
Hi Dan,

The error usually means that the selected VM SKU or region currently isn’t available for your subscription quota. Since the message specifically mentions Canada East, the quickest fix is usually one of these:

Try a different region (for example: Canada Central, East US, or Central US)

Choose another VM family/size that provides similar specs

Request a quota increase for the D-series VM family in that region

For a 4 vCPU / 16 GB requirement, you could also try:

Standard_D4as_v5

Standard_B4ms

Standard_E4s_v3

You can check availability under: Azure Portal → Subscriptions → Usage + quotas

After changing the region or SKU, refresh the deployment and try again.

Karanam Shrivasta
Dan Sirbu 5 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2026-05-14T13:21:06.3466667+00:00

I did create one in East US 2 but it get's deallocated/stopped often ... and I hoped that Canada east is a "less" used region and I do not get interrupted too often as I am now. At the same time I'm in the same Canada East region.

Your answer

Himanshu Shekhar 6,790 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-08T16:08:41.49+00:00

Dan Sirbu- please verify which VM sizes are available for your subscription in the target region

Microsoft documents using az vm list-skus to determine which VM SKUs are available in a specific location (and to help identify whether the SKU is available for the subscription in that location).

az vm list-skus --location canadacentral --size Standard_D --all --output table

Use an alternative VM size or an alternative region that meets your requirements (4 vCPU / 16 GiB)

Microsoft’s supported mitigation for SKU-not-available allocation failures is to try another VM size or deploy to a different location or zone. So, if your workload requirement is specifically “4 vCPU / 16 GiB,” the supported approach is:

Pick a different region where your subscription is allowed to deploy, and then

Select any available VM size that provides 4 vCPU and 16 GiB memory (as confirmed by az vm list-skus for that region).

If you must deploy in that specific region/SKU family, submit a SKU request to Azure Support

Microsoft’s documentation states that if a SKU isn’t available for your subscription in a location/zone that meets your business needs, you should submit a SKU request to Azure Support.

This is the supported path when you have a hard requirement for a specific region and/or VM family.

Resolve errors for SKU not available - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/troubleshooting/error-sku-not-available?tabs=azure-cli
Himanshu Shekhar 6,790 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-11T10:52:55.7366667+00:00

Dan Sirbu - Just checking if provided response was helpful! please let me know if you have any queries.
Dan Sirbu 5 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2026-05-12T13:16:54.6866667+00:00

I was allowed to create a VM on East US 2. In Canada central/east I'm not allowed. Canada east should have been better since it has to be "less" used than the US one. And it is closer to my Montreal location. I have hard time to create myself the support ticket due the AI tool so I kind of left it as is.
Karanam Shrivasta 0 Reputation points

2026-05-14T13:17:27.3466667+00:00

Hi Dan,

The error usually means that the selected VM SKU or region currently isn’t available for your subscription quota. Since the message specifically mentions Canada East, the quickest fix is usually one of these:

Try a different region (for example: Canada Central, East US, or Central US)

Choose another VM family/size that provides similar specs

Request a quota increase for the D-series VM family in that region

For a 4 vCPU / 16 GB requirement, you could also try:

Standard_D4as_v5

Standard_B4ms

Standard_E4s_v3

You can check availability under: Azure Portal → Subscriptions → Usage + quotas

After changing the region or SKU, refresh the deployment and try again.

Karanam Shrivasta
Dan Sirbu 5 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2026-05-14T13:21:06.3466667+00:00

I did create one in East US 2 but it get's deallocated/stopped often ... and I hoped that Canada east is a "less" used region and I do not get interrupted too often as I am now. At the same time I'm in the same Canada East region.