UK South VM allocation blocked: B2ms/B2s return SkuNotAvailable despite 65-vCPU quota

Question

I have an enabled Microsoft Azure Sponsorship subscription and need to deploy a small proof-of-concept environment in UK South.

The deployment requires two standard VMs:

• Standard_B2ms — Windows Server 2022
• Standard_B2s — Ubuntu 24.04
• Total requirement: 4 B-series vCPUs

The Bicep template compiles successfully. Microsoft.Compute is registered. The subscription shows:

• Standard BS Family vCPU quota: 65
• Current usage: 0
• No Azure Policy assignments denying VM deployment

However, ARM what-if validation consistently fails with:

SkuNotAvailable - Following SKUs have failed for Capacity Restrictions:
Standard_B2ms, Standard_B2s

I also tested equivalent B-, D-, and F-series sizes in several regions, including UK South, North Europe, West Europe, East US, and Central US. They were also rejected with capacity restrictions.

This appears to be a subscription-level allocation issue rather than a quota, policy, template, or Trusted Launch issue.

How can VM allocation capacity be enabled or restored for an Azure Sponsorship subscription in UK South? Is there a sponsorship-specific process to request allocation when Developer Support cannot open a technical support case?

For reference, the related Azure support request is 2607290050003010.

I have an enabled Microsoft Azure Sponsorship subscription and need to deploy a small proof-of-concept environment in UK South.

The deployment requires two standard VMs:

• Standard_B2ms — Windows Server 2022
• Standard_B2s — Ubuntu 24.04
• Total requirement: 4 B-series vCPUs

The Bicep template compiles successfully. Microsoft.Compute is registered. The subscription shows:

• Standard BS Family vCPU quota: 65
• Current usage: 0
• No Azure Policy assignments denying VM deployment

However, ARM what-if validation consistently fails with:

SkuNotAvailable - Following SKUs have failed for Capacity Restrictions:
Standard_B2ms, Standard_B2s

I also tested equivalent B-, D-, and F-series sizes in several regions, including UK South, North Europe, West Europe, East US, and Central US. They were also rejected with capacity restrictions.

This appears to be a subscription-level allocation issue rather than a quota, policy, template, or Trusted Launch issue.

How can VM allocation capacity be enabled or restored for an Azure Sponsorship subscription in UK South? Is there a sponsorship-specific process to request allocation when Developer Support cannot open a technical support case?

For reference, the related Azure support request is 2607290050003010.

Answer 1

Hi Andrew,

Due to capacity issues, subscriptions have been restricted from creating new VMs across many regions, even if you have available quota. This is especially true for v1 - v4 generation VMs, and in popular regions (UK South is one).

What I would suggest is to try deploying to less popular regions and different, more current (v5 v6 v7) VM generations. For example, please navigate to your Quotas in the portal, using link below:

https://portal.azure.com/#view/Microsoft_Azure_Capacity/QuotaMenuBlade/~/overview

Click on Compute, wait for list to populate, click on Region filter at top, de-select All, then select West US 3, click Apply. Wait several seconds for the list to populate. In the search box, enter standard dad

In the list below, check if you have quota for "Standard Dadsv7 Family vCPUs" or "standard Dadv6 Family vCPUs". If yes, try creating a Standard_D2ads_v6 or Standard_D2ads_v7 VM in West US 3.

Additionally, you could repeat same with other VM families and regions such as E* v6 or E* v7. Where possible test with v5 or higher generation VMs, checking if you have available quota for the family in the region first.

I agree with Andreas, if you can obtain Quota for B series v2, then it would be a good idea to use that as a substitute for B series v1 you were attempting to create. You may not be able to obtain quota for B v2 series in UK South.

You may also experiment with creating different, newer sizes in UK South as well.

Previous-generation VM size series capacity limitations and migration guidance

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/migration/sizes/previous-gen-series-capacity-limitations

If you have any questions please add a comment below.

Please click Accept Answer and upvote if the above was helpful.

Thanks.

-TP

Answer 2

Hi @Andrew Abbey ,

please check if these VM SKUs (free) are available for you instead of the Standard_B2ms and Standard_B2s:

For Windows VM: B2ATS

For Linux VM: B2ATS, and B2PTS

All of these are free of charge (750 hours per month) if used with a P6 (64GiB) managed disk.

Source: https://marketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/product/azure-services/microsoft.freeaccountvirtualmachine?tab=overview

As the B series (version 1/v1) is being retired in a lot of Azure regions the B2ATS might be the preferred VM SKU.

More details: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/general-purpose/bsv2-series?tabs=sizebasic#sizes-in-series

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Regards

Andreas Baumgarten

Answer 3

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A

Hello @Andrew Abbey , I hope you are doing well.

Thank you for providing the detailed troubleshooting steps. Based on what you've shared, you've already ruled out the common customer-side causes:

Microsoft.Compute is registered.

Your Standard BS Family vCPU quota is sufficient (65 vCPUs with 0 in use).

There are no Azure Policy restrictions blocking VM creation.

• The issue occurs across multiple VM families (B, D, and F) and multiple Azure regions.

Given that all these scenarios return SkuNotAvailable, this does not appear to be a quota or Bicep template issue. Instead, it points to a subscription-level allocation restriction or backend capacity/allocation issue affecting your Azure Sponsorship subscription.

Even though your quota shows available, actual deployment depends on real-time regional capacity. In high-demand scenarios, MSDN subscriptions can be more impacted by allocation restrictions than production subscriptions.

Azure is continuously working to expand and recover capacity in these regions, but while demand remains high, allocation requests may continue to be declined.

In the meantime, you could consider:

• Trying an alternate region (if possible)
• Testing with a different VM size family
• Retrying periodically as availability can change

If the region and availability zones are mandatory, another practical option would be to use a Pay-As-You-Go subscription for these deployments, as those subscriptions may have broader access to constrained capacity compared to MSDN-based subscriptions.

Since you have already opened support request 2607290050003010, that is the appropriate path for this scenario. The engineering team can verify whether your subscription is subject to an allocation restriction or whether there is an issue with capacity assignment for your sponsorship subscription.

In the meantime, you can continue monitoring the support request for updates. If the support engineer requires additional information, providing the correlation IDs from the failed deployments and the deployment timestamps can help them investigate the allocation failure in the backend.

If my answer helped you, please consider marking it as accepted. This helps others in the community find similar solutions.