Create a Virtual Machine Scale Set that uses Availability Zones
To protect your Virtual Machine Scale Sets from datacenter-level failures, you can create a scale set across Availability Zones. Azure regions that support Availability Zones have a minimum of three separate zones, each with their own independent power source, network, and cooling. For more information, see Overview of Availability Zones.
Availability considerations
When you deploy a regional (non-zonal) scale set into one or more zones as of API version 2017-12-01, you have the following availability options:
- Max spreading (platformFaultDomainCount = 1)
- Static fixed spreading (platformFaultDomainCount = 5)
- Spreading aligned with storage disk fault domains (platformFaultDomainCount = 2 or 3)
With max spreading, the scale set spreads your VMs across as many fault domains as possible within each zone. This spreading could be across greater or fewer than five fault domains per zone. With static fixed spreading, the scale set spreads your VMs across exactly five fault domains per zone. If the scale set cannot find five distinct fault domains per zone to satisfy the allocation request, the request fails.
We recommend deploying with max spreading for most workloads, as this approach provides the best spreading in most cases. If you need replicas to be spread across distinct hardware isolation units, we recommend spreading across Availability Zones and utilize max spreading within each zone.
Note
With max spreading, you only see one fault domain in the scale set VM instance view and in the instance metadata regardless of how many fault domains the VMs are spread across. The spreading within each zone is implicit.
Placement groups
Important
Placement groups only apply to Virtual Machine Scale Sets running in Uniform orchestration mode.
When you deploy a scale set, you also have the option to deploy with a single placement group per Availability Zone, or with multiple per zone. For regional (non-zonal) scale sets, the choice is to have a single placement group in the region or to have multiple in the region. If the scale set property called singlePlacementGroup is set to false, the scale set can be composed of multiple placement groups and has a range of 0-1,000 VMs. When set to the default value of true, the scale set is composed of a single placement group, and has a range of 0-100 VMs. For most workloads, we recommend multiple placement groups, which allows for greater scale. In API version 2017-12-01, scale sets default to multiple placement groups for single-zone and cross-zone scale sets, but they default to single placement group for regional (non-zonal) scale sets.
Note
If you use max spreading, you must use multiple placement groups.
Zone balancing
Finally, for scale sets deployed across multiple zones, you also have the option of choosing "best effort zone balance" or "strict zone balance". A scale set is considered "balanced" if each zone has the same number of VMs +\- 1 VM as all other zones for the scale set. For example:
- A scale set with 2 VMs in zone 1, 3 VMs in zone 2, and 3 VMs in zone 3 is considered balanced. There is only one zone with a different VM count and it is only 1 less than the other zones.
- A scale set with 1 VM in zone 1, 3 VMs in zone 2, and 3 VMs in zone 3 is considered unbalanced. Zone 1 has 2 fewer VMs than zones 2 and 3.
It's possible that VMs in the scale set are successfully created, but extensions on those VMs fail to deploy. These VMs with extension failures are still counted when determining if a scale set is balanced. For instance, a scale set with 3 VMs in zone 1, 3 VMs in zone 2, and 3 VMs in zone 3 is considered balanced even if all extensions failed in zone 1 and all extensions succeeded in zones 2 and 3.
With best-effort zone balance, the scale set attempts to scale in and out while maintaining balance. However, if for some reason this is not possible (for example, if one zone goes down, the scale set cannot create a new VM in that zone), the scale set allows temporary imbalance to successfully scale in or out. On subsequent scale-out attempts, the scale set adds VMs to zones that need more VMs for the scale set to be balanced. Similarly, on subsequent scale in attempts, the scale set removes VMs from zones that need fewer VMs for the scale set to be balanced. With "strict zone balance", the scale set fails any attempts to scale in or out if doing so would cause unbalance.
To use best-effort zone balance, set zoneBalance to false. This setting is the default in API version 2017-12-01. To use strict zone balance, set zoneBalance to true.
Note
The zoneBalance property can only be set if the zones property of the scale set contains more than one zone. If there are no zones or only one zone specified, then zoneBalance property should not be set.
Single-zone and zone-redundant scale sets
When you deploy a Virtual Machine Scale Set, you can choose to use a single Availability Zone in a region, or multiple zones.
When you create a scale set in a single zone, you control which zone all those VM instances run in, and the scale set is managed and autoscales only within that zone. A zone-redundant scale set lets you create a single scale set that spans multiple zones. As VM instances are created, by default they are evenly balanced across zones. Should an interruption occur in one of the zones, a scale set does not automatically scale out to increase capacity. A best practice would be to configure autoscale rules based on CPU or memory usage. The autoscale rules would allow the scale set to respond to a loss of the VM instances in that one zone by scaling out new instances in the remaining operational zones.
To use Availability Zones, your scale set must be created in a supported Azure region. You can create a scale set that uses Availability Zones with one of the following methods:
Use the Azure portal
The process to create a scale set that uses an Availability Zone is the same as detailed in the getting started article. When you select a supported Azure region, you can create a scale set in one or more available zones, as shown in the following example:
The scale set and supporting resources, such as the Azure load balancer and public IP address, are created in the single zone that you specify.
Use the Azure CLI
The process to create a scale set that uses an Availability Zone is the same as detailed in the getting started article. To use Availability Zones, you must create your scale set in a supported Azure region.
Add the --zones parameter to the az vmss create command and specify which zone to use (such as zone 1, 2, or 3).
Single-zone scale set
The following example creates a single-zone scale set named myScaleSet in zone 1:
az vmss create \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSet \
--image <SKU image> \
--upgrade-policy-mode automatic \
--admin-username azureuser \
--generate-ssh-keys \
--zones 1
For a complete example of a single-zone scale set and network resources, see this sample CLI script
Zone-redundant scale set
To create a zone-redundant scale set, you use a Standard SKU public IP address and load balancer. For enhanced redundancy, the Standard SKU creates zone-redundant network resources. For more information, see Azure Load Balancer Standard overview and Standard Load Balancer and Availability Zones.
To create a zone-redundant scale set, specify multiple zones with the --zones parameter. The following example creates a zone-redundant scale set named myScaleSet across zones 1,2,3:
az vmss create \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSet \
--image <SKU Image> \
--upgrade-policy-mode automatic \
--admin-username azureuser \
--generate-ssh-keys \
--zones 1 2 3
It takes a few minutes to create and configure all the scale set resources and VMs in the zone(s) that you specify. For a complete example of a zone-redundant scale set and network resources, see this sample CLI script
Use Azure PowerShell
To use Availability Zones, you must create your scale set in a supported Azure region. Add the -Zone parameter to the New-AzVmssConfig command and specify which zone to use (such as zone 1, 2, or 3).
Single-zone scale set
The following example creates a single-zone scale set named myScaleSet in East US 2 zone 1. The Azure network resources for virtual network, public IP address, and load balancer are automatically created. When prompted, provide your own desired administrative credentials for the VM instances in the scale set:
New-AzVmss `
-ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroup" `
-Location "EastUS2" `
-VMScaleSetName "myScaleSet" `
-VirtualNetworkName "myVnet" `
-SubnetName "mySubnet" `
-PublicIpAddressName "myPublicIPAddress" `
-LoadBalancerName "myLoadBalancer" `
-UpgradePolicy "Automatic" `
-Zone "1"
Zone-redundant scale set
To create a zone-redundant scale set, specify multiple zones with the -Zone parameter. The following example creates a zone-redundant scale set named myScaleSet across East US 2 zones 1, 2, 3. The zone-redundant Azure network resources for virtual network, public IP address, and load balancer are automatically created. When prompted, provide your own desired administrative credentials for the VM instances in the scale set:
New-AzVmss `
-ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroup" `
-Location "EastUS2" `
-VMScaleSetName "myScaleSet" `
-VirtualNetworkName "myVnet" `
-SubnetName "mySubnet" `
-PublicIpAddressName "myPublicIPAddress" `
-LoadBalancerName "myLoadBalancer" `
-UpgradePolicy "Automatic" `
-Zone "1", "2", "3"
Use Azure Resource Manager templates
The process to create a scale set that uses an Availability Zone is the same as detailed in the getting started article for Linux or Windows. To use Availability Zones, you must create your scale set in a supported Azure region. Add the zones property to the Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets resource type in your template and specify which zone to use (such as zone 1, 2, or 3).
Single-zone scale set
The following example creates a Linux single-zone scale set named myScaleSet in East US 2 zone 1:
{
"type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets",
"name": "myScaleSet",
"location": "East US 2",
"apiVersion": "2017-12-01",
"zones": ["1"],
"sku": {
"name": "Standard_A1",
"capacity": "2"
},
"properties": {
"upgradePolicy": {
"mode": "Automatic"
},
"virtualMachineProfile": {
"storageProfile": {
"osDisk": {
"caching": "ReadWrite",
"createOption": "FromImage"
},
"imageReference": {
"publisher": "myPublisher",
"offer": "myOffer",
"sku": "mySKU",
"version": "latest"
}
},
"osProfile": {
"computerNamePrefix": "myvmss",
"adminUsername": "azureuser",
"adminPassword": "P@ssw0rd!"
}
}
}
}
For a complete example of a single-zone scale set and network resources, see this sample Resource Manager template
Zone-redundant scale set
To create a zone-redundant scale set, specify multiple values in the zones property for the Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets resource type. The following example creates a zone-redundant scale set named myScaleSet across East US 2 zones 1,2,3:
{
"type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets",
"name": "myScaleSet",
"location": "East US 2",
"apiVersion": "2017-12-01",
"zones": [
"1",
"2",
"3"
]
}
If you create a public IP address or a load balancer, specify the "sku": { "name": "Standard" }" property to create zone-redundant network resources. You also need to create a Network Security Group and rules to permit any traffic. For more information, see Azure Load Balancer Standard overview and Standard Load Balancer and Availability Zones.
For a complete example of a zone-redundant scale set and network resources, see this sample Resource Manager template
Next steps
Now that you have created a scale set in an Availability Zone, you can learn how to Deploy applications on Virtual Machine Scale Sets or Use autoscale with Virtual Machine Scale Sets.
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