Azure Batch Distributes Workloads Across VMs

• Azure Batch distributes workloads over groups of VMs.
• The service can speed compute jobs that can be split up for parallel processing, such as payroll processing, software builds and testing, and artificial intelligence (AI) modeling.
• The service is free, but the compute and storage services it requires incur normal fees.

Azure Batch allows customers to leverage Azure’s scalability and utility computing model to run tasks that benefit from distributed computing power. Batch handles tasks that comprise the traditional programming pattern of batch processing, such as managing and scaling compute instances, ingesting application and data files, and returning output files.

Service Overview

Batch distributes a workload over a collection of VMs called a pool, which can range in scale from dozens to hundreds of thousands of VMs. The service has an automatic scaling feature that allows customers to define how the service adds and shuts down VMs in a pool to arrive at results more quickly or avoid unnecessary costs.