can someone explain the difference between Azure Spot (VMs) and DevTest VMs?

Question

can someone explain the difference between Azure Spot (VMs) and DevTest VMs? which one should I use when developing and testing apps ?

Answer 1

Hi Kareem,

Azure Spot Virtual Machines (VMs) and Azure DevTest Labs serve different purposes and are designed for distinct scenarios in Azure:

1. Azure Spot VMs:
   • Purpose: Azure Spot VMs are designed to utilize Azure's unused capacity at a significant cost reduction. They are ideal for workloads that can handle interruptions, such as batch processing jobs, development/testing environments, large compute workloads, etc.​​.
     • Cost Savings: These VMs offer a substantial cost advantage but come with the caveat that Azure may reclaim the capacity when needed, leading to potential eviction of the Spot VMs.
       • Eviction Policy: You can set the eviction policy to either 'Deallocate', allowing you to redeploy the VM later (though reallocation isn’t guaranteed), or 'Delete', where the VM and its underlying disks are deleted upon eviction​​.
         • Usage Scenario: Spot VMs are suitable for flexible, non-critical tasks where interruption is acceptable and cost efficiency is a priority.
2. Azure DevTest Labs:
   • Purpose: Azure DevTest Labs is a service that enables easy creation, usage, and management of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) VMs and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environments specifically for development and testing scenarios​​.
     • Controlled Environment: It provides a controlled environment where lab owners can create and manage VMs and environments, offering preconfigured bases, artifacts, and Azure Resource Manager templates​​.
       • Efficiency and Cost Control: DevTest Labs is focused on promoting efficiency, consistency, and cost control, particularly suitable for development VMs, test environments, and classroom/training labs​​.
         • Cost Management Features: Lab owners can set policies to control the number and size of VMs, schedule auto-shutdown/startup, and monitor costs to reduce waste and manage lab expenses effectively​​.
           • Customization and Integration: Users can create custom environments using continuous integration and deployment tools, and integrate deployment pipelines to create on-demand environments​​.

As for which one you should use! For developing and testing applications with a focus on minimizing costs and where availability is not a concern, Azure Spot VMs would be the more cost-effective option. They are specifically designed to offer Azure's unused capacity at significantly reduced prices, making them ideal for flexible, cost-sensitive development and testing scenarios where intermittent availability is acceptable.

While Azure DevTest Labs offers controlled environments for development and testing with cost management features, it doesn't provide the same level of cost savings as Azure Spot VMs, which are priced lower due to their potential for eviction when Azure needs the capacity back.

Hope this helps! Kindly if you find the provided information helpful and it resolves your query, please consider accepting the answer. Your feedback is valuable and helps ensure the quality and relevance of the responses.