Will I potentially lose my VM if I Stop (deal locate) it?

Question

Specifically talking about the Compute resource, not storage. With GPU instances in such high demand, if I were to be able to get one, but then Stop (Deallocate) after use, will I be guaranteed the VM can Run next time? Or can other users pick that VM up leaving me to wait until the next time one frees up?

Answer 1

Hi @lukaki ,

If you deallocate your Azure VM, you will be able to resume your operations once you start your Azure VM again.

When an Azure VM is deallocated it basically releases the lease of the underlying hardware and is completely powered off, also you will not be billed for the virtual machine resource, once deallocated the Azure VM will appear as Stopped (Deallocated).

If you simply shut down your Azure VM from within the operating system, the Azure VM will be showing as Stopped. This will on the other hand not release the lease that the Azure VM has on the underlying hardware, which means the hardware is unavailable for other customers. And note that in this state you will be billed for the Azure VM even though it is marked as Stopped.

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Best regards,
Leon