{
  "slug": "azure-virtual-machines-hc-series-retirement",
  "title": "Azure Virtual Machines: HC-series retirement",
  "summary": "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.",
  "cloud": "azure",
  "service": "Azure Virtual Machines",
  "service_slug": "virtual-machines",
  "category": "compute_sku",
  "type": "retirement",
  "announced_date": "2026-03-19",
  "effective_date": "2027-05-31",
  "effective_precision": "day",
  "impact": "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.",
  "migration_path": "1. Resize or deallocate your HC-series VMs.\n2. 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.\n3. Microsoft recommends the current-generation HPC families [HBv5-series](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/high-performance-compute/hbv5-series?tabs=sizebasic) and [HX-series](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/high-performance-compute/hx-series?tabs=sizebasic), the latter for high-memory HPC workloads.",
  "replacement": "HBv5-series or HX-series VMs",
  "affected_versions": [
    "Standard_HC44rs",
    "Standard_HC44-16rs",
    "Standard_HC44-32rs"
  ],
  "source_url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/updates?id=548543",
  "extra_source_urls": [
    "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/high-performance-compute/hbv5-series?tabs=sizebasic",
    "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/high-performance-compute/hx-series?tabs=sizebasic"
  ],
  "vendor_ref": "548543",
  "last_checked_at": "2026-11-12T09:55:19.345Z",
  "created_at": "2026-11-13T13:36:44.208Z",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-13T13:36:44.208Z",
  "url": "https://eolwatch.dev/items/azure-virtual-machines-hc-series-retirement",
  "short_url": "https://eolwatch.dev/i/68",
  "markdown_url": "https://eolwatch.dev/items/azure-virtual-machines-hc-series-retirement.md",
  "json_url": "https://eolwatch.dev/items/azure-virtual-machines-hc-series-retirement.json",
  "estate_check": {
    "resource_types": [
      "microsoft.compute/virtualmachines",
      "microsoft.compute/virtualmachinescalesets",
      "azurerm_linux_virtual_machine",
      "azurerm_windows_virtual_machine",
      "azurerm_virtual_machine",
      "azurerm_linux_virtual_machine_scale_set",
      "azurerm_windows_virtual_machine_scale_set",
      "azurerm_orchestrated_virtual_machine_scale_set",
      "azurerm_kubernetes_cluster",
      "azurerm_kubernetes_cluster_node_pool"
    ],
    "fields": [
      "vmsize",
      "sku",
      "size",
      "vm_size",
      "sku_name",
      "default_node_pool.vm_size"
    ],
    "inputs": [
      "Azure Resource Graph export (CSV or JSON)",
      "Terraform state or plan (JSON)",
      "ARM template"
    ]
  },
  "source_note": null
}