I have been notified that i need to migrte to DCdsv3 virtual from DCdsv2 however all options are greyed out

Question

I have been notified that i need to migrate to DCdsv3 virtual from DCdsv2 however all options are greyed out. I have tried stopping the server, and selecting other options. However, I can't even change my availability zone. What can I do?

Answer 1

Hi Jeff,

Please navigate to your VM in portal, on left click on Availability + scale -- Size. In upper right corner, change the dropdown to No grouping. There will be several second delay while it retrieves sizes. In the search box in upper left, enter DC to filter the list for sizes that begin with DC.

If there is a DC*sv_v3 that you are interested in, hover your mouse over the little info icon after the name. It should show notification bubble with reason why it is incompatible. For example, if your current VM is in Zone 2, it may say something to the effect that the size isn't available in Zone 2, but it is available in Zone 3.

If you see message like above you know the reason is the size isn't available in current zone. What you can do in this specific case is deallocate your VM, take snapshot of OS disk (for this sample I'm assuming only OS disk), create disk from the snapshot in target Availability Zone (in this example, Zone 3), then create new VM from new disk in target zone, placing it in same VNet as original VM, selecting DC*sv_v3 size.

My example scenario above is only considering the VM in isolation. In real world there may be other considerations before you decide to move a VM to a different zone.

Please reply back with your findings.

Thanks.

-TP

Answer 2

The DCsv2 → DCdsv3 migration is done by resizing the VM to a DCdsv3 size. When size/zone options are greyed out, it is typically because of one of these constraints:

1. DCdsv3 not available in the current region or cluster
   DCdsv3 SKUs are only available in specific regions and are not being deployed to new regions. If DCdsv3 is not available where the VM currently runs, the Size blade will not offer DCdsv3 options. From the FAQ: if there are no DCdsv3-series VMs available in the current region, the supported options are:
   • Check availability in nearby regions that have DCdsv3 capacity.
   • Contact Azure Support to explore alternative solutions.
2. Region is one of the constrained DCsv2 regions
   If the DCsv2 VM is in North Central US, Canada East, Australia Southeast, or UK West, DCdsv3 is not available there. In that case, migration must be done to one of the listed supported regions (for example, East US, West Europe, UK South, etc.). The documented steps are:
   1. Identify a target region from the supported DCdsv3 list.
   2. Back up all data.
   3. Capture an image of the VM and replicate it to the target region.
   4. Create a new VM from that image in the target region using a DCdsv3 size.
3. Attempting to change availability zone on an existing VM
   Availability zone cannot be changed directly on an existing VM. To move to a different zone, a new VM must be created (for example, from an image or disk) in the desired zone.
4. Quota or capacity limitations
   Even if DCdsv3 is supported in the region, the subscription might not have sufficient DCdsv3 vCPU quota, or the cluster may not have capacity. In that case:
   • Request a vCPU quota increase for the DCdsv3 family in the target region.
   • If still unavailable, consider another supported region or one of the alternative confidential VM families (DCasv5/DCadsv5/ECasv5/ECadsv5, DCasv6/ECasv6, DC/ECesv6) or container-based confidential options.
5. Local temp disk constraints
   DCsv2 and DCdsv3 both use a local temp disk; resizing between a size with local temp disk and one without is not supported. If trying to move to a diskless DCsv3 size directly, the resize will not be allowed. The supported path is:
   • Resize DCsv2 → DCdsv3 (both with local temp disk), or
   • Use the documented snapshot/image workaround to move between “with temp disk” and “no temp disk” VM families.

Concrete actions to take:

1. Check DCdsv3 availability in the current region
   • In the portal, on the VM → Size blade (after Stop/Deallocate), verify whether any DCdsv3 sizes appear. If none appear, DCdsv3 is not available on that cluster/region.
2. If in North Central US, Canada East, Australia Southeast, or UK West
   • Plan a region migration:
     • Stop and deallocate the VM.
     • Capture an image into a Shared Image Gallery, enabling replication to a supported region.
     • In the gallery, select the image → Create a VM in a supported region and choose a DCdsv3 size.
3. If DCdsv3 is available but greyed out due to quota
   • Request a vCPU quota increase for DCdsv3 in that region, then retry the resize.
4. If availability zone change is required
   • Create a new VM from an image or disk in the desired zone and DCdsv3 size; zone cannot be changed in-place.

If none of the DCdsv3 options are workable in the current region, use one of the recommended alternative confidential compute options (DCasv5/DCadsv5/ECasv5/ECadsv5, DCasv6/ECasv6, DC/ECesv6, or Azure Confidential Container Instances / virtual nodes for AKS) and migrate workloads accordingly.

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References:

• DCsv2-series retirement