Mount an Application VHD on Azure Worker Nodes
Applies To: Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2, Microsoft HPC Pack 2012, Microsoft HPC Pack 2012 R2
Starting with HPC Pack 2012, you can optionally mount a durable application VHD file (an Azure drive) on each Azure worker node. To do this, you must first create a VHD containing your application or data and then upload it as a page blob to the Azure storage account for the deployment by using the hpcpack upload command. The page blob must have the .vhd extension. Then, specify a VHD that is suitable for mounting as an Azure drive when you create or edit a node template for Azure worker nodes. The application VHD file is automatically mounted when each Azure node is provisioned.
Note
Azure drive is currently in preview.
Additional considerations
It can take some time to upload a large page blob to Azure storage. Ensure that the VHD is fully uploaded before you provision the Azure worker nodes that mount the VHD.
A snapshot of the application VHD is automatically created in the Azure storage account when you provision the nodes, and this snapshot is deleted automatically when you stop the deployment with HPC Cluster Manager. If you use the Azure Portal to stop the deployment, the snapshot remains in Azure storage and should be deleted manually.
For general information on using an Azure drive, see Azure Drive.