GPU Integration on Azure VM

Accidental comment

Hi Stumpy Green,

Unfortunately, Azure does not support GPU passthrough on standard VM sizes. GPU access in Azure is tightly tied to specific VM families primarily the N-Series, which includes NV, NC, ND, and NDv5 types.  GPU optimized VM sizes

Azure's N-Series VMs are specifically designed for GPU tasks and provide the necessary drivers and virtualization support for GPU operations. If you're looking to run GPU-intensive workloads without incurring the expense of an N-Series VM, here are a couple of options to consider:

1. Check for Azure promotions or credits: Sometimes, Azure offers promotional credits that you can use towards services.
2. Use lower-tier VMs: Depending on your workload, you may find that a standard VM meets your needs for CPU-intensive tasks, albeit without GPU acceleration
3. Azure Spot VMs let you take advantage of unused compute capacity at up to 90% discount compared to pay-as-you-go pricing. You can use Spot pricing with N-Series VMs such as:  Learn more about Azure Spot VMs Avoid Spot VMs for:

• Stateful applications that require persistent uptime
• Critical production services without failover or redundancy
• Workloads with strict SLA 4. If your GPU workload is predictable and long-term, you can reserve N-Series VMs for 1 or 3 years to get significant discounts (up to 72%). This option is best for production environments where you need guaranteed capacity and consistent performance. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/save-compute-costs-reservations