AzureRetirement
Azure Virtual Machines: HC-series retirement
Retirement date for HC-series Azure Virtual Machines: 31 May 2027. After that date, remaining HC-series VMs are set to a deallocated state and stop working.
Retires , 31 May 2027
What breaks
The retirement covers the sizes Standard_HC44rs, Standard_HC44-16rs and Standard_HC44-32rs. After the retirement date, remaining HC-series VMs are set to a deallocated state, stop working and no longer incur billing charges. After the retirement date, HC-series is no longer under SLA and no longer has support included. Purchases of 1-year and 3-year reserved instances ended on April 2, 2026.
Who is affected
Affected versions
Standard_HC44rsStandard_HC44-16rsStandard_HC44-32rs
Matching resource types
microsoft.compute/virtualmachinesmicrosoft.compute/virtualmachinescalesetsazurerm_linux_virtual_machineazurerm_windows_virtual_machineazurerm_virtual_machineazurerm_linux_virtual_machine_scale_setazurerm_windows_virtual_machine_scale_setazurerm_orchestrated_virtual_machine_scale_setazurerm_kubernetes_clusterazurerm_kubernetes_cluster_node_pool
Fields the check reads
vmsizeskusizevm_sizesku_namedefault_node_pool.vm_size
Detected by the estate check from
- Azure Resource Graph export (CSV or JSON)
- Terraform state or plan (JSON)
- ARM template
What to do
- Resize or deallocate your HC-series VMs.
- Microsoft recommends migrating the workloads to newer HPC-optimized SKUs such as HBv5, HBv4, HX and HBv3-series virtual machines, or an alternative that meets your workload requirements.
- Microsoft recommends the current-generation HPC families HBv5-series and HX-series, the latter for high-memory HPC workloads.
Replacement
HBv5-series or HX-series VMs
Sources
- Official sourceazure.microsoft.comOfficial
- Additional sourcelearn.microsoft.comOfficial
- Additional sourcelearn.microsoft.comOfficial
Last checked against the first source in this list on .
Related
- , 1 Sep 2026Azure Virtual Machines: cc_v5 nested confidential VM series retirementSource
- , 30 Sep 2026Azure Virtual Machines: NVv3-series retirementSource
- , 30 Sep 2026Azure Virtual Machines: NVv4-series retirementSource
- , 31 Mar 2027Azure Virtual Machines: Standard_M192idms_v2 retirementSource
- , 31 Mar 2027Azure Virtual Machines: Standard_M192ids_v2 isolated size retirementSource
- , 31 Mar 2027Azure Virtual Machines: Standard_M192ims_v2 isolated size retirementSource
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