Unable to create Spot node pools in AKS

Arunan Sugunakumar 20 Reputation points
2023-03-07T03:19:36.2933333+00:00

I have an Azure for Students subscription and I am trying to create a secondary node pool for an AKS cluster with Spot instances. But it is continuously saying that the VMs are not available and asking me to try different regions or size. "Please try another size or deploy to a different location or zones." I tried everything for a long time but I am unable to create.

Is this normal for a Students subscription? I am working on a Research and if I need to continue should I upgrade to a paid subscription?

Azure Kubernetes Service
Azure Kubernetes Service
An Azure service that provides serverless Kubernetes, an integrated continuous integration and continuous delivery experience, and enterprise-grade security and governance.
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  1. vipullag-MSFT 26,487 Reputation points Moderator
    2023-03-15T04:38:38.6466667+00:00

    Hello Arunan Sugunakumar

    Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Platform, thanks for posting your query here.

    It is possible that a paid subscription may give you access to more resources and regions, it is unlikely that your issue is related to your Azure for Students subscription.
    More likely, it is related to the availability of Spot instances in the specific region and size you are attempting to deploy to.
    Try creating the node pool in a different region or using a different VM size and see if that succeeds.
    Check the Azure Spot capacity in the region where you are trying to create the node pool by using the Azure Spot Capacity API.

    Consider using regular (On-Demand) VMs instead of Spot instances, especially if the workload is not flexible with interruptions.

    Note:

    • A Spot node pool can't be the cluster's default node pool. A Spot node pool can only be used for a secondary pool.
    • The control plane and node pools can't be upgraded at the same time. You must upgrade them separately or remove the Spot node pool to upgrade the control plane and remaining node pools at the same time.
    • A Spot node pool must use Virtual Machine Scale Sets.
    • You can't change ScaleSetPriority or SpotMaxPrice after creation.
    • When setting SpotMaxPrice, the value must be -1 or a positive value with up to five decimal places.

    Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/spot-node-pool

    https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/free/students/

    Hope this helps.

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