Can't upgrade SKU of burstable PostgreSQL Flexible Server

Question

Can't upgrade SKU of burstable PostgreSQL Flexible Server

Nick Shew 10

I have an Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server. It's at Burstable tier and the compute size is Standard_B2s. We're running into resource constraints so I want to bump it to General Purpose Standard_D2ads_v5.

When trying to do this by changing the sku_name in terraform to GP_Standard_D2ads_v5, I get:

│ Status: "LocationIsOfferRestricted"
│ Code: ""
│ Message: "Subscriptions are restricted from provisioning in location 'eastus'. Try again in a different location. For exceptions to this rule, see how to request a quota increase in https://aka.ms/postgres-request-quota-increase."
│ Activity Id: ""

When I check my quotas for the Azure PostgreSQL provider, the highest usage percentage is "cores" at 16 of 24, so we shouldn't be exceeding that. We also have barely any usage in the Compute provider -- which is weird because we have several existing Standard_D2ads_v5 tier postgres servers.

When I try manually upgrading in the portal, I see some strange behavior. The only value in the "Compute size" dropdown is "Standard_B2s," even if I select "General Purpose" in "Compute tier."

I can actually activate the Save button in the UI if I change Compute tier and some arbitrary property in the Storage section. But applying the changes fails with:

The requested server edition is incompatible with requested Sku Size. Please refer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/postgresql/flexible-server/concepts-compute-storage#compute-tiers-vcores-and-server-types.

So my questions are:

If this is truly a quota issue, how can I see which quota is being exceeded?
How can change compute tier and size of my postgres server?

Nick Shew 10 Reputation points

2025-11-11T16:16:07.35+00:00
Hi @Anonymous , thanks for the response:

1:

That command results in "For prices please refer to https://aka.ms/postgres-pricing" and no other output.

If I omit "-o table" I get json output -- "reason" says:

"Provisioning is restricted in this region. Please choose a different region. For exceptions to this rule please open a support request with Issue type of 'Service and subscription limits'."

there is nothing under "supportedServerEditions" and "supportedServerVersions," only "supportedFastProvisioningEditions."

You're right that Standard_D2ads_v5 doesn't appear in that list under "supportedFastProvisioningEditions," but I have multiple postgres servers running at that tier in East US. As a matter of fact, it says I have "serverCount" of 0 running at "standard_b2s," which is odd because the server I'm trying to upgrade is standard_b2s.

2:

I suspect the quotas in my subscription may have quietly changed? Under the "compute" provider in Quotas I'm noticing a lot having "0 of 0." I have bumped "Standard DADSV5 Family vCPUs" from 0 to 20 and submitted a request to increase "Standard Dv5 Family vCPUs" as well. I don't see "GP Dv5" under the postgres provider though, so I don't think I can submit a ticket for that:
Anonymous

2025-11-11T21:36:44.2533333+00:00
You cannot directly upgrade a Burstable SKU (e.g., standard_b2s) to General Purpose or Memory Optimized tiers because these tiers use different VM families. Burstable SKUs rely on BS family cores, while General Purpose tiers require Dv-series cores (e.g., Dv4/Dv5). If your subscription shows 0 quota for standardDv5Family or standardDDSv5Family in the target region, the upgrade will fail with an error like:

Provisioning is restricted in this region. Please choose a different region.

The upgrade process needs available vCPU quota for the target VM family.

If quotas for Dv-series families are zero, Azure cannot provision the new compute resources.

Check quotas:

Navigate to Subscriptions → Usage + quotas → Compute in the Azure Portal.

Verify quotas for standardDv5Family and standardDDSv5Family in your region. Request quota increase:

Submit a support request to increase the required vCPUs (e.g., from 0 to 20).

Reference the VM family used by the desired tier. After quota approval, retry the SKU upgrade.

If you want to move from Burstable to General Purpose or Memory Optimized without quota issues, you can also create a new Flexible Server in the desired tier and migrate your data using pg_dump/pg_restore or Azure Database Migration Service.

References

Scale compute - Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server

Increase VM-family vCPU quotas - Azure Quotas

Compute options for Azure PostgreSQL Flexible Server

Quotas overview in Azure
Anonymous

2025-11-12T21:37:39.7466667+00:00

I hope this is helpful! Do not hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions or clarifications.
Nick Shew 10 Reputation points

2025-11-13T16:32:16.8466667+00:00
I guess I'm confused how I haven't run into this issue before, given that we have multiple existing Standard_d2ads_v5 postgres servers and yet our quotas are set to 0.

I submitted support requests for Dv5 and DDSv5 per your recommendation and got the following:

I understand you need assistance in increasing Quota request for Compute-VM for, Ddsv5 Series / 20 in EAST US region on Subscription id - ***. I have been working with our internal capacity management team; the request has been backlogged with no ETA and below update. Thank you for requesting additional quota. Unfortunately, due to high demand for virtual machines in this region, we are not able to approve your quota request at this time. We appreciate your patience while Azure works to bring additional capacity online. No further information is needed from your end at this time; your request remains pending. Rest assured, as soon as additional capacity becomes available, we will review your request and approve it promptly

...and a similar one for Dv5.

However, my request for Compute -> Dadsv5 was approved, and my quota reads 0 of 20. But standard_d2ads_v5 still does not appear in az postgres flexible-server list-skus -l eastus, and I still cannot upgrade via the portal. As a matter of fact, I can't even change to a different burstable SKU using the portal.

So I still have questions:

This looks like I'm indefinitely unable to create new servers using these compute families. How were we able to create D2ads_v5 servers in the past? Were our quotas changed without alerting us?

Is "Standard DADSv5 Family vCPUs" not the correct quota for Standard_d2ads_v5 postgres servers? Is there a general way to determine which quota is blocking operations like this?

What actually determines the output of az postgres flexible-server list-skus -l eastus? Is it a problem that the only entries appear under "supportedFastProvisioningEditions" rather than "supportedServerEditions" or "supportedServerVersions?"

Maybe this is the real issue: you mentioned I cannot directly upgrade burstable tier servers -- so I couldn't just change the target compute tier + family to something we have available quota for? I have to create a new server and manually migrate data?
Nick Shew 10 Reputation points

2025-11-13T17:08:57.1366667+00:00

I also just tried to up the storage of a different standard_d2ads_v5 server and got the same error:

Subscriptions are restricted from provisioning in location 'eastus'. Try again in a different location. For exceptions to this rule, see how to request a quota increase in https://aka.ms/postgres-request-quota-increase. (Code: LocationIsOfferRestricted)
Anonymous

2025-11-13T19:02:01.6933333+00:00
The error LocationIsOfferRestricted confirms this is not a quota issue but a regional capacity restriction for PostgreSQL Flexible Server in East US. Even operations like increasing storage on an existing Standard_D2ads_v5 server fail because:

Azure’s capacity management has temporarily blocked provisioning for certain SKUs in that region due to high demand.

This restriction applies to new deployments and some scale operations (compute or storage) when the underlying VM family cannot be allocated.

Try another region:

Use az postgres flexible-server list-skus -l <region> to find available SKUs.

Please try with regions.

Workarounds:

If migration is acceptable, create a new server in a region with GP SKUs and migrate data.

For storage increase, consider logical partitioning or read replicas if scaling is blocked.
Anonymous

2025-11-14T19:57:27.5366667+00:00

I hope this is helpful! Do not hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions or clarifications.
Pilladi Padma Sai Manisha 2,225 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-21T07:51:23.3333333+00:00

Hi Nick Shew,
Did you get any chance to provide details in private message. Thank you!

1 answer

Your answer

Nick Shew 10 Reputation points

2025-11-11T16:16:07.35+00:00

Hi @Anonymous , thanks for the response:

1:

That command results in "For prices please refer to https://aka.ms/postgres-pricing" and no other output.

If I omit "-o table" I get json output -- "reason" says:

"Provisioning is restricted in this region. Please choose a different region. For exceptions to this rule please open a support request with Issue type of 'Service and subscription limits'."

there is nothing under "supportedServerEditions" and "supportedServerVersions," only "supportedFastProvisioningEditions."

You're right that Standard_D2ads_v5 doesn't appear in that list under "supportedFastProvisioningEditions," but I have multiple postgres servers running at that tier in East US. As a matter of fact, it says I have "serverCount" of 0 running at "standard_b2s," which is odd because the server I'm trying to upgrade is standard_b2s.

2:

I suspect the quotas in my subscription may have quietly changed? Under the "compute" provider in Quotas I'm noticing a lot having "0 of 0." I have bumped "Standard DADSV5 Family vCPUs" from 0 to 20 and submitted a request to increase "Standard Dv5 Family vCPUs" as well. I don't see "GP Dv5" under the postgres provider though, so I don't think I can submit a ticket for that:
Anonymous

2025-11-11T21:36:44.2533333+00:00

You cannot directly upgrade a Burstable SKU (e.g., standard_b2s) to General Purpose or Memory Optimized tiers because these tiers use different VM families. Burstable SKUs rely on BS family cores, while General Purpose tiers require Dv-series cores (e.g., Dv4/Dv5). If your subscription shows 0 quota for standardDv5Family or standardDDSv5Family in the target region, the upgrade will fail with an error like:

Provisioning is restricted in this region. Please choose a different region.

The upgrade process needs available vCPU quota for the target VM family.

If quotas for Dv-series families are zero, Azure cannot provision the new compute resources.

Check quotas:

Navigate to Subscriptions → Usage + quotas → Compute in the Azure Portal.

Verify quotas for standardDv5Family and standardDDSv5Family in your region. Request quota increase:

Submit a support request to increase the required vCPUs (e.g., from 0 to 20).

Reference the VM family used by the desired tier. After quota approval, retry the SKU upgrade.

If you want to move from Burstable to General Purpose or Memory Optimized without quota issues, you can also create a new Flexible Server in the desired tier and migrate your data using pg_dump/pg_restore or Azure Database Migration Service.

References

Scale compute - Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server

Increase VM-family vCPU quotas - Azure Quotas

Compute options for Azure PostgreSQL Flexible Server

Quotas overview in Azure
Anonymous

2025-11-12T21:37:39.7466667+00:00

I hope this is helpful! Do not hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions or clarifications.
Nick Shew 10 Reputation points

2025-11-13T17:08:57.1366667+00:00

I also just tried to up the storage of a different standard_d2ads_v5 server and got the same error:

Subscriptions are restricted from provisioning in location 'eastus'. Try again in a different location. For exceptions to this rule, see how to request a quota increase in https://aka.ms/postgres-request-quota-increase. (Code: LocationIsOfferRestricted)
Anonymous

2025-11-13T19:02:01.6933333+00:00

The error LocationIsOfferRestricted confirms this is not a quota issue but a regional capacity restriction for PostgreSQL Flexible Server in East US. Even operations like increasing storage on an existing Standard_D2ads_v5 server fail because:

Azure’s capacity management has temporarily blocked provisioning for certain SKUs in that region due to high demand.

This restriction applies to new deployments and some scale operations (compute or storage) when the underlying VM family cannot be allocated.

Try another region:

Use az postgres flexible-server list-skus -l <region> to find available SKUs.

Please try with regions.

Workarounds:

If migration is acceptable, create a new server in a region with GP SKUs and migrate data.

For storage increase, consider logical partitioning or read replicas if scaling is blocked.
Anonymous

2025-11-14T19:57:27.5366667+00:00

I hope this is helpful! Do not hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions or clarifications.
Pilladi Padma Sai Manisha 2,225 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-21T07:51:23.3333333+00:00

Hi Nick Shew,
Did you get any chance to provide details in private message. Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi Nick Shew ,
Welcome to Microsoft Q&A and thank you for posting your question.

This isn’t your vCore “cores” quota. The messages (“LocationIsOfferRestricted” and “requested server edition is incompatible with requested Sku Size”) indicate the GP Dv5 SKU you chose isn’t allowed or available for your subscription in East US and/or in your server’s availability zone. This restriction is separate from cores quota and can be zone-specific. Also note: a Burstable → General Purpose upgrade is only supported in-place if the target SKU is offered in your region and your server’s current availability zone; a zone mismatch blocks the change.

Please check:

Check what SKUs and zones you can actually use: az postgres flexible-server list-skus -l eastus -o table Confirm Standard_D2ads_v5 appears under General Purpose and that your server’s zone is in supportedZones.
If the SKU/zone is restricted or at capacity, open a Support request and ask to enable/expand Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server GP Dv5 in East US (specify your subscription and zone). Alternatively, pick a GP SKU that’s listed for your zone, or create a new GP server in a supported zone/region and migrate (pg_dump/restore, logical replication, or read replica) before cutover.
After access is enabled, change compute: • Portal: Server → Compute + Storage → set tier to General Purpose → pick the desired Dv5 size → Save (server restarts). • Terraform: sku_name = "GP_Standard_D2ads_v5" and apply (ensure the SKU is offered in your zone).

Docs

Compute tiers, vCores and server types: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/postgresql/flexible-server/concepts-compute-storage
Azure CLI reference (list-skus): https://learn.microsoft.com/cli/azure/postgres/flexible-server#az-postgres-flexible-server-list-skus
Create a support request: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/azure-portal/supportability/how-to-create-azure-support-request

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Can't upgrade SKU of burstable PostgreSQL Flexible Server

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