Azure Generation 2 VMs Bring Higher Capacity Only

• Gen 2 VMs are now supported in Azure.
• Gen 2 VMs offer larger processor, memory, and OS disk capacity than Gen 1 VMs.
• Many security features of Gen 2 VMs on-premises are not yet supported by Azure.
• Migration options for existing on-premises Gen 2 VMs are limited.
• Organizations that do not need larger capacity should hold off deploying Gen 2 VMs on Azure.

Azure Generation 2 (Gen 2) VMs, now generally available, provide the increased processor, memory, and OS disk capacity that is also available on-premises with Gen 2 VMs in Windows Server Hyper-V or VMware VMs configured as recent VM hardware versions. However, Azure Gen 2 VMs still lack key security features. Customers who do not need the higher capacity hold off on adoption until other Gen 2 VM features arrive and full migration support is available with services like Azure Migrate.

Increased VM Capacity

Azure Gen 2 VMs support firmware based on the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), which offers faster boot times and supports security features not provided by the basic input/output system (BIOS) emulation of Gen 1 VMs. Azure Gen 2 VMs can support up to 12TB of memory (versus 1TB for Gen 1), 240 virtual processors (versus 64 for Gen 1), and OS disks larger than 2TB. This higher capacity can make Azure Gen 2 VMs useful for memory- and processor-intensive workloads, such as large relational databases.