'M' family memory optimized VM size series

Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs ✔️ Windows VMs ✔️ Flexible scale sets ✔️ Uniform scale sets

The 'M' family of VM size series are one of Azure's ultra memory-optimized VM instances designed for extremely memory-intensive workloads, such as large in-memory databases, data warehousing, and high-performance computing (HPC). Equipped with substantial RAM capacities and high vCPU capabilities, the M-family VMs support applications and services that require massive amounts of memory and significant computational power. High resource allocation makes the M-family particularly well-suited for handling tasks such as heavy SQL Server and other RDBMS workloads, complex scientific simulations, real-time data processing, and large-scale enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, ensuring peak performance for the most demanding data-centric applications.

Workloads and use cases

In-Memory Databases: The M-family is particularly effective for running in-memory databases like SAP HANA that require large amounts of RAM for real-time data processing and analytics.

Big Data Applications: The M-family is ideal for handling big data applications that need to process and analyze huge datasets in memory, improving performance and reducing the time to insights.

Data Warehousing: M-family VMs provide the performance and memory needed for data warehousing applications, facilitating faster queries and better handling of large volumes of data.

Enterprise Applications: The M-family supports large-scale enterprise applications, including ERP and CRM systems, which benefit from having more memory to manage larger datasets and more complex transactions efficiently.

Heavy Workloads in Virtualized Environments: The M-family is well-equipped to handle heavy virtualized environments, offering substantial memory for hosting multiple virtual machines and applications on a single physical server.

Series in family

M-series

The M-series offers a high vCPU count (up to 128 vCPUs) and a large amount of memory (up to 3.8 TiB). It's also ideal for extremely large databases or other applications that benefit from high vCPU counts and large amounts of memory. M-series sizes are supported both on the Intel® Xeon® CPU E7-8890 v3 @ 2.50GHz and on the Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8280M (Cascade Lake).

View the full M-series page.

Mv2-series

The Mv2-series features high throughput, low latency platform running on a hyper-threaded Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8180M 2.5GHz (Skylake) processor with an all core base frequency of 2.5 GHz and a max turbo frequency of 3.8 GHz. All Mv2-series virtual machine sizes can use both standard and premium persistent disks. Mv2-series instances are memory optimized VM sizes providing unparalleled computational performance to support large in-memory databases and workloads, with a high memory-to-CPU ratio that is ideal for relational database servers, large caches, and in-memory analytics.

View the full Mv2-series page.

Msv2 and Mdsv2-series

The Msv2 and Mdsv2 Medium Memory VM Series features Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8280 (Cascade Lake) processor with an all core base frequency of 2.7 GHz and 4.0 GHz single core turbo frequency. With these VMs, customers achieve increased flexibility with local disk and diskless options. Customers also have access to a set of new isolated VM sizes with more CPU and memory that go up to 192 vCPU with 4 TiB of memory.

View the full Msv2 and Mdsv2-series page.

Previous-generation M family series

For older sizes, see previous generation sizes.

Other size information

List of all available sizes: Sizes

Pricing Calculator: Pricing Calculator

Information on Disk Types: Disk Types

Next steps

Learn more about how Azure compute units (ACU) can help you compare compute performance across Azure SKUs.

Check out Azure Dedicated Hosts for physical servers able to host one or more virtual machines assigned to one Azure subscription.

Learn how to Monitor Azure virtual machines.