Azure Virtual Machines Roadmap

by
Jim Gaynor

by
Jim Gaynor

Jim leads the Directions on Microsoft editorial team and has been writing about technology since the early 1990s. Most recently... more

Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) offer persistent VMs running Windows Server, Linux, and (in certain scenarios) Windows client OSs. Organizations can provision VMs with required computing resources, and the subscriber is responsible for the deployment, maintenance, and management of all software within the VM. Azure VMs offer an alternative to running Microsoft’s Hyper-V or solutions from VMware or other vendors on-premises, and the service competes with Amazon Web Services EC2 and VMware Cloud on AWS, and Google’s Compute Engine hosted services.

Product: Azure Virtual Machines

Licensing: Azure VM

Near Term (2025–2026)

Default outbound access for Azure VMs will be retired on Sept. 30. 2025; VMs that require Internet access will need to be assigned explicit outbound connectivity via NAT Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, or an assigned IP address.

Trusted launch as default, in preview, enables trusted launch for any new Gen 2 VMs or scale sets created through any client tools with secure boot and vTPM enabled. This currently requires customers to opt into the preview but will eventually become the default for all Gen 2 VMs.