Optimal Azure VM for Intensive MetaTrader 5 EA Optimization

Question

I am running intensive optimizations for an Expert Advisor (EA) in MetaTrader 5 and need advice on the best Azure VM for the job.

My current setup:

• Historical data: From 1994 to the present.
• Optimization task: 20,200 parameter combinations (2 * 100 * 101).
• Local machine: AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS, 8 cores, 16 threads / local agents (1024 tasks per thread / agent).

The local setup takes too long.

What I’m looking for in an Azure VM:

1. OS: Windows.
2. Performance: Capable of handling highly parallel computational workloads.
3. RAM: Enough to manage a large historical dataset.
4. Cost efficiency: Reasonable pricing for tasks running intensively over several days.

Could anyone recommend the best Azure VM SKU that balances cost and performance for this workload?

Thank you in advance for your guidance!

Answer 1

Hi @Jose , as it's easy to create an Azure VM, I'd suggest you start with a small general-purpose VM, run your workload, and monitor the performance and utilization.

I'm not sure what kind of "reasonable pricing" you're after, would these options make sense?Pricing is based on East US region, other regions may have different price, please refer to Azure VM Pricing.

• D2s_v5 2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, USD 137.24/month (Pay-as-you-go, including Windows license). The Dsv5 series virtual machines are based on the 3rd Generation Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8370C (Ice Lake) processor in a hyper-threaded configuration.
• D2as_v6 2vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, USD 133.59/month (Pay-as-you-go, including Windows license). The Das_v6-series virtual machines are based on the 4th Generation AMD EPYC™ Genoa processor.
• D2as_v5 2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, USD 129.94/month (Pay-as-you-go, including Windows license). The Das_v5-series virtual machines are based on the 3rd Generation AMD EPYC™ 7763v (Milan) processor.
• F2s_v2 2vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 16 GiB temp disk, USD 118.99/month (Pay-as-you-go, including Windows license). The Fsv2-series virtual machines provide 2-GiB of RAM and 8 GB of local temporary storage (SSD) per vCPU(s) and are optimized for compute intensive workloads. The Fsv2-series VMs are hyper-threaded and based on the Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8272CL (second generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors), or the Intel Xeon® Platinum 8168 (Skylake) processor.

Please note that Azure VM can be attached to Managed Disk for persistent storage. Persistent storage disks are billed separately from virtual machines. See pricing for disks.