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Deploy Azure Spot Virtual Machines using a Resource Manager template

  • Article

Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs

Using Azure Spot Virtual Machines allows you to take advantage of our unused capacity at a significant cost savings. At any point in time when Azure needs the capacity back, the Azure infrastructure evicts Azure Spot VMs. Azure Spot VMs are great for workloads that can handle interruptions like batch processing jobs, dev/test environments, large compute workloads, and more.

Pricing for Azure Spot Virtual Machines is variable, based on region and SKU. For more information, see VM pricing for Linux and Windows.

You have option to set a max price you're willing to pay, per hour, for the VM. The max price for an Azure Spot VM can be set in US dollars (USD), using up to five decimal places. For example, the value 0.98765would be a max price of $0.98765 USD per hour. If you set the max price to be -1, the VMs eviction is not based on price and it's price will be the current price for Azure Spot VMs or the price for a standard VM, whichever is less, as long as there's capacity and quota available. For more information about setting the max price, see Azure Spot VMs - Pricing.

Use a template

For Azure Spot VM template deployments, use"apiVersion": "2019-03-01" or later. Add the priority, evictionPolicy and billingProfile properties to in your template:

"priority": "Spot",
"evictionPolicy": "Deallocate",
"billingProfile": {
    "maxPrice": -1
}

Here's a sample template with added properties for an Azure Spot VM. Replace the resource names with your own and <password> with a password for the local administrator account on the VM.

{
    "$schema": "http://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-03-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
    },
    "variables": {
        "vnetId": "/subscriptions/ec9fcd04-e188-48b9-abfc-abcd515f1836/resourceGroups/spotVM/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/spotVM",
        "subnetName": "default",
        "networkInterfaceName": "spotVMNIC",
        "publicIpAddressName": "spotVM-ip",
        "publicIpAddressType": "Dynamic",
        "publicIpAddressSku": "Basic",
        "virtualMachineName": "spotVM",
        "osDiskType": "Premium_LRS",
        "virtualMachineSize": "Standard_D2s_v3",
        "adminUsername": "azureuser",
        "adminPassword": "<password>",
        "diagnosticsStorageAccountName": "diagstoragespot2019",
        "diagnosticsStorageAccountId": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/diagstoragespot2019",
        "diagnosticsStorageAccountType": "Standard_LRS",
        "diagnosticsStorageAccountKind": "Storage",
        "subnetRef": "[concat(variables('vnetId'), '/subnets/', variables('subnetName'))]"
    },
    "resources": [
        {
            "name": "spotVM",
            "type": "Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces",
            "apiVersion": "2019-03-01",
            "location": "eastus",
            "dependsOn": [
                "[concat('Microsoft.Network/publicIpAddresses/', variables('publicIpAddressName'))]"
            ],
            "properties": {
                "ipConfigurations": [
                    {
                        "name": "ipconfig1",
                        "properties": {
                            "subnet": {
                                "id": "[variables('subnetRef')]"
                            },
                            "privateIPAllocationMethod": "Dynamic",
                            "publicIpAddress": {
                                "id": "[resourceId(resourceGroup().name, 'Microsoft.Network/publicIpAddresses', variables('publicIpAddressName'))]"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                ]
            }
        },
        {
            "name": "[variables('publicIpAddressName')]",
            "type": "Microsoft.Network/publicIpAddresses",
            "apiVersion": "2019-02-01",
            "location": "eastus",
            "properties": {
                "publicIpAllocationMethod": "[variables('publicIpAddressType')]"
            },
            "sku": {
                "name": "[variables('publicIpAddressSku')]"
            }
        },
        {
            "name": "[variables('virtualMachineName')]",
            "type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines",
            "apiVersion": "2019-03-01",
            "location": "eastus",
            "dependsOn": [
                "[concat('Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/', variables('networkInterfaceName'))]",
                "[concat('Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/', variables('diagnosticsStorageAccountName'))]"
            ],
            "properties": {
                "hardwareProfile": {
                    "vmSize": "[variables('virtualMachineSize')]"
                },
                "storageProfile": {
                    "osDisk": {
                        "createOption": "fromImage",
                        "managedDisk": {
                            "storageAccountType": "[variables('osDiskType')]"
                        }
                    },
                    "imageReference": {
                        "publisher": "Canonical",
                        "offer": "UbuntuServer",
                        "sku": "22.04-LTS",
                        "version": "latest"
                    }
                },
                "networkProfile": {
                    "networkInterfaces": [
                        {
                            "id": "[resourceId('Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces', variables('networkInterfaceName'))]"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                "osProfile": {
                    "computerName": "[variables('virtualMachineName')]",
                    "adminUsername": "[variables('adminUsername')]",
                    "adminPassword": "[variables('adminPassword')]"
                },
                "diagnosticsProfile": {
                    "bootDiagnostics": {
                        "enabled": true,
                        "storageUri": "[concat('https://', variables('diagnosticsStorageAccountName'), '.blob.core.windows.net/')]"
                    }
                },
                "priority": "Spot",
                "evictionPolicy": "Deallocate",
                "billingProfile": {
                    "maxPrice": -1
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "name": "[variables('diagnosticsStorageAccountName')]",
            "type": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts",
            "apiVersion": "2019-04-01",
            "location": "eastus",
            "properties": {},
            "kind": "[variables('diagnosticsStorageAccountKind')]",
            "sku": {
                "name": "[variables('diagnosticsStorageAccountType')]"
            }
        }
    ],
    "outputs": {
        "adminUsername": {
            "type": "string",
            "value": "[variables('adminUsername')]"
        }
    }
}

Simulate an eviction

You can simulate an eviction of an Azure Spot VM, to test your application response to a sudden eviction.

Replace the below parameters with your information:

  • subscriptionId
  • resourceGroupName
  • vmName
POST https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/{vmName}/simulateEviction?api-version=2020-06-01

Next steps