Azure announces the public preview of VM Customization
features, a new capability that gives customers greater control over virtual CPU
configurations to optimize performance and licensing costs. This feature
introduces two powerful options: Disable Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT/HT)
and Configurable Constrained Cores.
With VM Customization, customers can now:
- Disable
Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT/HT) to run VMs with one thread per core
for improved performance on latency-sensitive and single-threaded
workloads
- Select
a custom vCPU count from a guided list of valid options to reduce software
licensing costs while retaining full memory, storage, and I/O bandwidth
These capabilities are available across a wide range of VM
sizes and are supported in select regions during public preview.
VM Customization offers:
- Self-service
control over Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT/HT)
- Flexible
vCPU selection from validated core count options per VM size
- Support
for both features independently or in combination
- Reduced
licensing costs for software billed per vCPU (e.g., SQL Server, Oracle)
- Azure
Portal, ARM template, CLI and PowerShell support for easy deployment
These features are ideal for database workloads, HPC
scenarios, and customers seeking to optimize licensing costs without
sacrificing performance.